Spiegel Tent

I got a late start to the day, which is what I do to compensate for the 12-hour work day I did on Thursday. I imagine that next week I'm going to have to go into insane work mode and do a bunch of days with those kind of hours in order to clear some of these projects off my desk before I back up my office at the end of the month.

I had my usual singing lesson with Halley today. My voice is kind of tired, which means that I'm talking too much, and also that I'm not talking properly. She wants to learn to use a different placement of my voice for my regular speaking, somewhere closer to where I sing. She also gave me a new chromatic scale drill to do. We also spent some of our time talking about various church music issues and ideas. It's good times.

I don't think I mentioned that a week ago Friday Betsy and I had another couple went to the Spiegel Tent show down by the Toronto waterfront. It's a very unusual theatrical experience: a burlesque tent from the 1920's transported from Europe and set up next lake Ontario. The tent isn't as big as you might imagine, but the intimate size works well since everyone feels like they are sharing in something special. The show itself was rather like an old fashioned vaudeville experience--mixing acrobatics, comedy, dancing, music, and even burlesque. It probably wouldn't get more than a PG-13 rating if it were a movie, but what made it so great was the shear energy and excitement of the crowd and performers in the tent. And it helps that they serve food and alcohol, too. It was a blast, the kind of thing I do again except that the show closes August 12 (having been extended twice already).

Betsy and I used to see a fair amount of theater in New Haven, and I'm looking forward to catching more here in Toronto. There is plenty good theater to catch, for sure.

Friends are coming over tonight--I'm not sure what Betsy's plans for supper include...

-t