Nights on Broadway: Exciting News for Fall

This morning while eating my Honey Nut Cheerios and watching Morning Joe, I let out a loud squeal.

Husband, unsure as to what on Morning Joe could cause such delight or alternatively such horror, rushed into the room and asked if anything was wrong.

Me: No! It just scrolled across the screen that Alan Rickman is coming back to Broadway this fall!

Husband: In what play?

Me: ...Does it really matter? We're obviously going.

During my car ride to work, I considered the possibilities.

I knew that Rickman had originated the role of Le Vicomte de Valmont in Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Dangerous Liasons) way back in 1985, but wasn't considered famous enough to reprise his role in the film version. Then a few years back, he stared in Noel Coward's play Private Lives (which annoyingly I did not know about until the weekend that it closed).

Surely he'd be tackling something different as opposed to doing one of those roles a second time. And as glorious as it would to hear him sing on stage, I suspected that it would be a play, not a musical.

I confirmed both of these things once in the office. The play in which Rickman will star is Seminar, a new play by Theresa Rebeck, which is about four awe struck students taking a course taught by a famous writer (Rickman, of course). Click here for the full story.

I'm totally hoping that they cast some super famous Hollywood types as the students so when I go see the play and stand by the stage door afterwards, everyone will be there to see those actors and I'll have Alan all to myself!

Hey, a girl can dream, can't she?

So if you're anywhere near New York this fall, check out this play. Rickman rarely turns in a less than stellar performance and maybe you'll even catch a glimpse of me as I'm being hauled away from him by the police!

(And in the meantime, you can catch Mr. Rickman as Severus Snape in the final installment of the Harry Potter movies on Friday July 15. I've got seriously high hopes for the amount of Snape in this final movie so they'd better not disappoint!)

Happy Wednesday!

Meeting Dr. Brian May

I could sit here and try to think of a catchy title for this post, but no matter what I come up with, it won't convey the absolute amazingness that was last evening: I met Dr. Brian May!

Husband and I got up early. I took the day off, but he had work to do so we drove into NYC at 7am so he could work out of his firm's Times Square office. I dropped my stuff off and ventured out to Rockefeller Plaza for my first Anthropologie visit of the day. While there, I spotted two lovelies that I thought would be just perfect to wear that evening: the Artist's Pallette Necklace and the Bright Bulb Posts.

In my What to Wear to Meet Brian May poll, Jenny from notjustaprettyface suggested a big statement necklace to make a conservative dress more "rock star meeting" appropriate. I thought that was a great idea and these two pieces definitely fit the bill!

While out shopping, I got caught in the rain...twice. Oh my gosh - I was so worried about my bangs! I brought make-up and a new outfit to change into, but my hair had been given the task of looking adorable all by itself all day without any performance enhancing substances! Luckily the heavy rain started right as I was outside Banana Republic so I ducked inside. The second time I was a block away from my second Anthropologie of the day. Phew! Crisis averted!

Soon it was time to get ready at Husband's office. What dress won the poll?

Well it was a close race between the Swirling Villages, Surplice Dress from Anthropologie and the Silk Dress with Ruffle V-Neck from Ann Taylor Loft. In the end, two things made the decision for me: first, that the skirt on this dress is much fuller and I knew that I'd need to squat down to take a photo with a seated Dr. May and second, once I realized that the Swirling Villages, Surplice Dress had actually villages on it (and the book signing was for A Village Lost & Found), it made me a little self-conscious so I was much more comfortable in this dress!

We got to the Metropolitan Museum of Art early. I had been so worried about not getting a cab and it's a good thing too: between the rain and the fact that people uptown can apparently afford cabs (as opposed to the students from my old stomping ground at NYU!), it took us a while! Forgive me for not smiling in the above picture - I was seriously trying to get a cab!

Once at the Met, we located the lecture hall and then wandered around a bit. I knew that just sitting there would make me nervous so I tried to distract myself.

Practicing my "posing" one last time in the Egyptian room.
 Would you like a piece of my pecan pie? PE-can pie!

Dear Anthro,

Please make the pattern of this chair into a skirt. That is all.

Love, Kathleen

Then, at last, it was time. If we didn't go in, we were in danger of missing the presentation. We got special 3D glasses which kept me amused for the final few minutes. Husband and I took a picture together but he won't let me post it!


The lecture was really amazing. I've seen stereoscopic photographs before, but I've never been able to properly see the 3D image. In order for us to understand what they were talking about, they showed the photographs on a large screen using a projector. Since the photographs are of a village, several times I felt like I wanted to just crawl into the picture and lay down in the grass!

Dr. May was a great speaker and really made an effort to include Ms. Vidal in the lecture. On one occasion, an audience question was whether the time period in which the photos were taken (1850s) has some profound affect on him since many Queen songs have a bit of that old-fashioned sound to them. Dr. May gave a short answer and then said, "What do you think, Elena?" as if she had any grand insight into what he had written his songs about! It was rather funny to watch her reaction!

After audience questions, it was time to filter into the Museum Store for the signing. By the time we got in line, it wrapped around the store. Dr. May had said at the start of the lecture that both his daughter Emily and Queen's longtime manager Jim Beach were in attendance so we tried to find them while we were waiting. We found Emily (more on that later), but not Jim Beach. Too bad because a picture with him would have been an unexpected surprise!

The line moved rather quickly. I had thought we'd be there all night, but the Museum staff was taking over duties like handing him the book and telling him the person's name. Husband kept walking to the front to do surveillance and figure out what would be appropriate (I was still worried that I wouldn't get the picture that I wanted!) Dr. May was spending a fair amount of time with everyone though so that was encouraging and then finally about twenty minutes in, Husband reported that a middle aged gentleman had practically crawled into Dr. May's lap for a photo. "Great," I announced, "I'm a young girl. He definitely won't mind if I do that!"

While we waited, I chatted with the girl ahead of me and the man behind me. Both had only found out about the signing in the past few days! The girl had driven down from Buffalo and said that she had brought a Queen CD with her in case he would sign that. I told her that I, too, had a CD: Back to the Light. I didn't know if he was signing memorabilia though. The man behind us told us that he had seen Queen in concert during the News of the World tour in 1977. He was 11 years old and it was his first concert. I was glad for the company in line. Husband was there and was a tremendously good sport about the whole thing, but it was nice to have other big Queen fans there to keep me from completely freaking out!

Then we got closer. At one point, a few people in front of us stepped to the side and THERE HE WAS! The girl in front of us and I both squealed simultaneously at the sight of him. Luckily, that was my first and only fan girl squeal of the night. We both pulled out our CDs and asked the Museum staff if he was signing other things. "You can ask him," she told us, "He's been very nice about signing things."

At this point, Emily May, who had been sitting behind Dr. May the entire time, realized that the girl in front of us was alone. She walked around the table and offered to take the picture. So I'm standing there, collecting my nerves, telling the Museum staff my name for the autograph, and trying not to throw up and all of a sudden I look over and there's Husband chatting up Emily May! I suspected that he might chat with Ms. Vidal, but his daughter? Husband, let the record reflect that if you want to divorce me and marry Emily May so we can kind of jointly both be Dr. May's son-in-law, I'm totally on board with that!

I was next. At this point, I'm a little perturbed. I appreciated the staff lady taking my book and telling him my name (because otherwise, who knows what name I would have blurted out), but she kept insisting that after the photo, you go around behind Ms. Vidal back to the front of the table to chat. Well after my photo was taken, I felt like she was trying to move me around and if I had gone around the back, she would have brought in the next person...so I stayed put...right next to Dr. May. I feel so bad because I didn't even look at Ms. Vidal, but I wasn't going to mess up this opportunity.

As he was signing my book, he said, "Nice to meet you, Kathleen." He looked up and smiled and I said, "I want to get a picture too." So I squatted down and we kind of fumbled over who was going to put their arm over the other persons. We both looked at each other and giggled a bit. I swear - he giggled. It was a total moment. And then the picture was taken. Husband had figured out a way to set the camera on a speed setting so we got FIVE pictures! The fourth is the best: we're both smiling and his eyes look so warm! This is right before the last picture in which he has pursed lips as he's asking, "Did you get it?"

Then the Museum staff made her salary for the night: she reminded me that I had brought Back to the Light for him to sign and HE DID! Then I handed him my card. I had wanted to give him a belated birthday card, but also a card to write all the things that I would have said if I had unlimited time and wasn't a bundle of nerves. Here I am explaining that to him. Look at how attentively he's listening to me! And he's holding my card! When I told him I was nervous, he went, "Oh no," and reached up to touch my elbow. That's when I died!

Afterwards, we went to dinner at our favorite NYC restaurant, Becco's. I was so pleased with the evening: an interesting lecture, two signed items, and six great pictures! Dr. May has a reputation for being one of the nicest celebrities ever and I totally understand why. Even Husband said a few times afterwards how impressed he was with him. He was genuinely interested in what people had to say and took time to speak with every single person!

Here are my signed book and CD. I told Husband that if RT wants to continue being my favorite member of Queen, he needs to write a book and get over to the U.S. pronto because as of last night, I am officially a little in love with Brian May!

Thanks to everyone who humored me over the past few weeks. To say I was excited is certainly an understatement. I'm thrilled to death that I've met a member of my favorite band! I started to tear up after we left the Museum Store just because in my wildest dreams, I couldn't have imagined him being as nice as he was. He really is a wonderful and talented man.

As I mentioned I hit up two Anthropologies during the day on Friday so to make up for all the Queen talk recently, I'll post a bunch of fitting room reviews next week!

All I can say now is: 1 member of Queen down, 2 to go!

That means you, RT!

Book Review: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

This book was recommended to me by a reader as a possible beach read. When I walked into the bookstore two days before we left for our vacation it happened to be the first book I saw so I grabbed it. Then earlier this week I was having an extensive conversation with someone about a boy with a dragon tattoo and I realized, "Whoops - I wanted to do a book review."

So here is my book review on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson.

I was about halfway through this book before I realized that it is the first book in a series of three. It seems the books aren't connected in any way other than the two main characters, Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander. I was glad to see that there were additional books because: 1) Mikael and Lisbeth don't even meet until more than halfway through this first book and 2) this book ends rather abruptly after it ties up the loose ends of the mystery that the pair are solving. Knowing that there are two more books to look forward to is definitely a good thing (although also a sad thing - author Steig Larsson wrote the three books, delivered them to his publisher and then died shortly thereafter so they are releasing the three books in quick succession).

I liked this book nearly immediately. The chapters bounce back and forth between following Mikael and Lisbeth so the reader can slowly piece together information about their lives without getting sick of them. The story revolves around Henrik Vagner, an aging businessman who hires Mikael to solve the mystery of his niece's disappearance some 40 years ago.

When I'm reading a book, I like to imagine what the main characters look like. It helps me personify them more. Usually this image changes in my mind as I make my way through the book, but sometimes I am able to identify a specific person of whom a character reminds me.

Here's the description of the first time we meet Henrik Vagner, "He looked surprisingly vigorous for eighty-two: a wiry body with a rugged, weather-beaten face and thick grey hair combined straight back. He wore nearly pressed dark trousers, a white shirt, and a well-worn brown casual jacket. He had a narrow moustache and thin steel-rimmed glasses." (p. 85)

In this case, here is what I'm absolutely convinced Henrik Vagner looks like:

It's RT! Now granted, RT's about twenty years younger (more so when this picture was taken) than Henrik and I wouldn't necessarily call his body "wiry" these days, but otherwise, it's a perfect match.

And to prove that I'm not just being silly, here's a picture of the actor who played Henrik Vagner in the 2009 Swedish adaptation of the book:

Yeah, I thought you'd agree. You're forgiven for doubting me.

So there you go, my review!

What? You want more?

Really? It's not enough to tell you that one of the main characters made me think of a member of Queen. Ugh - alright then.

Maybe I'm a dork but there's a whole culture of Russian literature that I really like. I adored Crime & Punishment. I've read Anna Karenina (twice). Mr. Larsson was Scandinavian, but elements of this book fell into the same category as the aforementioned Russian novels. For example, he alternates calling characters by their first and last names based on the context and the character speaking. I can't tell you how many times I had to reread portions of Crime & Punishment before I figured out that Raskolnikov, Rodion, and Rodya were the same person. So in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, sometimes it's Lisbeth and other times Salander, sometimes Mikael and sometimes Blomkvist - luckily, unlike Dostoevsky Larsson doesn't also give the characters random nicknames that readers are left to suss out for themselves.

Another element which reminded me of the Russian novels which I adore is the dialogue. There's lots of dialogue in this book. I like that. Nothing bores me more than pages and pages of description about what a certain archway in a particular garden looks like - BORING! This book moves quickly and Larsson gives just enough information so that the reader is coming to the same conclusion as the characters at about the same time. That makes me feel smart and I like feeling smart when I'm reading (because otherwise, why would I bother reading? I'd just do what I really want to do which is sit mindless in front of the television watching reruns of Family Guy. Seriously.) And, unlike the Russian writers, Larsson rarely launches into a three page string of one sentence statements with nary a clue as to which character is speaking - again, much appreciated and makes me feel smart.

The plot is a straight-up mystery. There was a crime (or was there?) and Henrik Vagner would like Mikael Blomkvist to figure out the perpetrator. Through a series of not so random events, Mikael eventually hires Lisbeth Salander to assist him in solving the crime. Initially the crime itself is straight-forward enough. Henrik's niece Harriet disappeared forty years ago. Henrik suspects that she was murdered by someone in the family and wants Mikael to discover who. Right around the time Mikael and Lisbeth finally meet up, clues begin to link Harriet's disappearance to something much more large scale and by the end of the book - HOLY CRAP, I'm sleeping with the lights on tonight! It gets dark and it gets dark fast.

Throughout the book, readers get glimpses into Mikael and Lisbeth's personal lives, but they are just that: glimpses. As I read the last page, I didn't feel like I really know Mikael or Lisbeth at all. I knew I liked them both, particularly Lisbeth who comes across as a sort of kick-ass, feminist, regular person/super hero hybrid. If you've read The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand (one of my favorite books), she was very Howard Roark-esque: she does her thing and could really care less what anyone thinks of her.

Henrik, on the other hand, not so much. Throughout the whole book, he comes across as this kindly old man but by the end, I was mad at him.

Actually I was mad at Roger. I tend project anger like that. I'll have a dream where Husband does something to upset me and I wake up mad at him. So here, I had no Henrik to be mad at and Husband really hadn't done anything wrong this time, so my anger ended up directed at Roger.

All I can say is, "Not cool, Roger. Not cool."

I'd definitely recommend this book and I plan on picking up the second book in the series The Girl Who Played With Fire and eventually the third book The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. I'm not sure when I'll get a chance to read them as I'm not planning any more vacations, but who knows, I might even be tempted to read these books while not on vacation.

I know, right? I must really like a book when I start making crazy statements like that!

Happy Reading!

Queen Anniversary: 25 Years Since Live Aid

Confession - I just woke up. It's 11:45 EST and I've had a long 24 hours. Our flight left Cabo San Lucas at 3pm EST (1pm Cabo time). Our second flight from Atlanta was supposed to take off at 9:30pm. Then it was 10:45pm. Then 11:15pm. Then 12:15am. I think we finally took off sometime around 12:30am. We landed around  3:15am, got our bags, waited for our ride and arrived home around 4am. Oh my gosh am I glad I didn't have to go to into work today - even now I'm so tired I can barely see straight! Husband has already loaded pictures onto the computer so I'm hoping to pick out some nice ones to post later tonight so watch out for that.

But in the meantime, it was brought to my attention that today is the 25th Anniversary of Live Aid.  Of course, most people know that Live Aid was an international concert organized by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia. The concert was actually a pair of concerts: one at Wembley Stadium in London and one at John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, PA. The concerts were also broad casted live on television across the world.

Queen was invited to play at the Wembley Stadium concert. They accepted and 25 years ago today, gave what is considered by many the greatest live show ever. Seriously, if you haven't ever seen Queen's Live Aid show, you are doing yourself a disservice.


The band only had approximately 20 minutes on stage so they selected a mix of their most popular hits: Bohemian Rhapsody, We Will Rock You, We Are the Champions, Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Hammer to Fall, and Radio Ga Ga. Just to watch the crowd of 75,000 (all of whom weren't even necessarily Queen fans) clap along to Radio Ga Ga demonstrates what a tremendous hold Freddie Mercury had over all audiences. Truly amazing!

I'll hopefully be back later, much more rested, fed, and less cranky with some photos. We had an amazing time and I'm sad to be home, but glad that this weekend my family is in town and then next weekend is Dr. May's book signing!

Multiple Myeloma Race for Research 2010

Two Sundays ago, Husband and I participated in the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation Race for Research. I was hoping to post a write-up sooner, but the keeper of the photographs was being a little stingy about sharing with me so I had to wait! Here's our team:

This is the third year that Husband and I have participated in this race. The first year, we walked with my sister-in-law (and our dog Abbie) and between the three of us raised a few hundred dollars. This year, we fielded a team of more than twenty friends and family and together we raised more than $4000! It was a tremendous success!

Every year, one of the members of the MMRF Honorary Board acts as the Master of Ceremonies for the event. Our first year participating, WNBA player Rebecca Lobo attended. The past two years, Ann Curry has participated. This year, Husband's cousin and aunt ended up walking a good portion of the race with her! I never realized that the Master of Ceremonies actually participated! Very cool! This makes me wish even harder that one of these years Keith Olbermann (also an Honorary Board member) will be the Master of Ceremonies - oh how I love him!

Two of our friends from Boston and one of our friends from New York came to join us. The latter brought his six month old daughter who is just a doll. I swear I'm going to steal this baby! We spent the whole day with her and I don't think she cried once! As soon as they arrived, I pounced on the stroller and picked her up to parade her around! At one point, her dad went to the bathroom and I was ready to run off into the night with her, but Husband stopped me! Boo!

Every year, MMRF hosts races all around the country to help raise money and awareness for this rare and incurable form of cancer. For additional information about MMRF Races for Research in your area, visit their website here.

Today's Queen memory is Fat Bottomed Girls. This is a more recent memory and I've written about it before. Back in March, my father-in-law got remarried. We all went down to Florida for a wedding weekend. After the ceremony, we had a reception and one of my new "step-brother-in-laws" was in charge of the music on his iPod. The family found out about my Queen obsession, found this song on his iPod, and gathered in the dance floor singing and dancing! It was tremendously fun and I'll probably think of them every time I hear this song from now on!

Happy Running!