the Wizards and Witches come out!
On Thursday July 26, I finally got a copy of the final installment of the Harry Potter series (HP), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Book 7... I spent an hour reading the first 100 pages (don't worry no spoiler's here) and all I can say is wow! J.K. Rowling is definitely using all her cards on this book... she's taking a lot of risk with the characters... it's so free, and wild but still contained- like a rollercoaster (loops, hills but still within a track)... I kept turning page after page, which at first seemed like a lot of pages per chapter but before I realize it I'm already done with the chapter... so I'm reading all this excitement while in Starbucks behind the Kimmel Center (of course) sipping a caramel Frap (I told the lady no whip cream but she still put some- no whip cream because I'm watching the fat/sugar content in my blood, I can't do my starbucks binge anymore because one frap a day calls for the doc to stay)... watching the fifth installment of the HP movie was definitely a helpful reminder of the ongoings in the potter-universe. As of right now, I'm half-way through the book!
I ate a quick dinner after finishing the first 100 pages and then headed to the Academy of Music venue (only a block away) to watch the broadway hit Wicked: The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz.... I read the book before I knew that there was a musical... at first I didn't want to watch the musical, but I was convinced when I heard the music from a couple of Wicked SHU fanatics, I familiarized myself with some of the songs I liked a lot such as "the Wizard and I," "Dancing Through Life," "For Good," etc.... when I saw that Wicked was going to be in Philly, I bought my ticket asap (I didn't want to travel all the way to NY- too much coordination needed, transportation and other schedules).
Wicked is light-hearted, funny and smart... the issues discussed such as leadership, propanganda, friendship, can be applied in today's world... Wicked is fraught with verbal irony and other irony, it's imaginative, it has a nice twist on the origins of the beloved Wizard of Oz characters such as the Lion, the Scarecrow, the Tinman, the Wizard, and of course the witches. Act one was filled with lots of fabulous songs like "Popular" and "Defying Gravity." Act two filled in the gap of the story lines and it has a killer ending and a banging finale song "For Good." Although Elphaba is the main character, Glinda stole the show with her quirky vocabulary, mannerisms and dance movements. She was just lovable and funny. At times she was the bimbo bonde, and sometimes she broke through the conventions of stereotypical blonde. The show gets a wickedly cool grade of A++!
It was a magical and spellbound day!
Posted by Michael Diezmos at July 29, 2007 12:46 PM