Where to Begin?

[shanmonster]

I begin this post in the perhaps futile hope that LJ is working properly. If not, well, I guess this post will have to be saved for later.

I've been a very, very busy beaver. After teaching a dance class on Friday and having a late-night gaming session, I left bright and early Saturday morning for Toronto. We spent the day at the Ontario Science Centre, which was entertaining for a variety of reasons including:

• the claustrophia chamber. This was an upright, roughly coffin-sized room where an overbearing male voice talked about slaves coming over on cramped slave ships, people in over-crammed prisons, and other tales of the invasion of personal space. While this went on, one wall started to meander its inexorable way toward me. I think this was supposed to freak people out, but I took advantage of the situation to practice my chimney climbing. Unfortunately my shoes were too slippery on the walls to do this effectively.
  
• the checkboard floor. A sign in front of this floor warned people only to step on the black squares all the way into the room. Being the obstinate sort, I walked on the white squares, or one both black and white, and when I got to the end of the room, was pleased to discover some sort of morality lesson about how I probably conscientiously walked only on the black squares. Nonconformists of the world, unite!
  
• the water piano. It's an outdoor pipe organ that works through magic. I say this because fountain technology is sufficiently over-my-head to become indistinguishable from magic. Yeah, that was an Arthur C. Clarke reference.

The next day, snowy_kathryn and I attended a dance workshop with Irene Dowd, who is truly a god among dance kinesiologists. For four hours, we learned her Orbits program as implemented for the hip. The program is designed to work the hip joint as thoroughly and as evenly as possible. I thought I had an excellent understanding of my hip mechanics, but Ms. Dowd put me in my place and left me sore in places I've never been sore in before.

On Monday, still aching from my workshop, I taught two dance classes and (perhaps foolishly) took a fitness class focusing on abs and glutes. Oh, my poor glutes. They were already so very sore, but I put them through another round. I suspect my butt would get sore after doing one hundred and forty "dirty dog" leg lifts on a good day. On my post-workshop-ache day, I worried I may not be able to walk home. But I did. And I even had energy left over for yesterday....

Yesterday I went back to Toronto to go hang out with my old university pal Chrissy. We were on our feet for a solid ten hours. We walked from the bus terminal to Kensington back down to Queens Quay and the Skinny Puppy concert!!! I don't think I used enough exclamation points there, so I'll add a few extra for good measure.

!!!!!

There.

The show was opened by two acts: Otto von Shirach and White Mice. I'd never heard of either before, and although White Mice aren't to my liking (death metal/noise), I am impressed by Otto von Shirach's crazy IDM/industrial sampling and his frenetic stage show. The man is a loony, and a highly entertaining loony, at that. He wore a black spandex superhero suit, complete with a cape, a Zorro-style mask, and a spandex tighty whities. His muffin-topping combined with the outrageous Sue Johanson sex samples created something ludicrous, but in a good way. I am in the process of downloading his free mp3s as I type.

I've wanted to see Puppy for almost twenty years, and the wish finally came true last night. I'm astounded that Nivek Ogre can sustain such a high level of energy for so long. He clearly loves what he is doing and is a consummate showman. He was doing his thing for a good ninety minutes, and from looking at the tour schedule, it looks like he'll be doing this on a nightly basis, without any nights off, after very long bus rides, for a ten-day stretch. Yikes.

I can't say I favour oHgr's new hair-do, but he's still on My List. And much to my glee, they performed "Worlock", which is one of my all-time favourite songs. I couldn't see cEvin Key too well (in fact, I thought he was drumming until I got closer and realized that no, that was him going mental on the Star-Trek-light-panels-of-doom which comprised his synth banks). I don't know who the drummer is, but he's really good.

Nivek wore some crazy contraptions, as usual. He came out covered in some sort of fake blood hydraulic system. Bright tubes wrapped around and trailed behind him as he did his crazy thing all over the stage. His face was covered in gunk from the first time we saw him, and on top he wore a white wife-beater which progressively became stained with blood. His pants were black and pretty straight-forward aside from the white plastic codpiece with what looked like a wrapped summer sausage dangling beneath. I still have no idea what that was supposed to be. It didn't exactly look phallic--just bizarre. Later on, he put on a chrome mask. The front looked a bit like Darth Vader, but with a long antenna sticking out of the mouth or nose. When Nivek bobbed his head, the mask jolted up and down, revealing his face.

I couldn't really see cEvin, but he wore a hat (and presumably other clothes, too).

And today, after about four and a half hours of sleep, I came back home in time to watch snowy_kathryn graduate, and then go and teach my first dance class at the senior citizens' centre. I think I'm going to enjoy teaching the older ladies. They're a lot more high-energy than many of my far younger students.

And now, the final test, when I click on the "Post" button and see if all of this typing was for naught...

(It worked!)

Comments

[miami-pony.livejournal.com]

I'm a bit disappointed that I missed the Skuppy show, but I did just see my new favourite prog-rock band Porcupine Tree, and I did just buy tickets to go see Rick Wakeman. If I were a much wealthier person I'd be going to many many more concerts.

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

I've been invited to go see Slayer and Marilyn Manson. I'm still waffling, but I'm thinking no. I'm really not that fond of either, and would be going only to spend time with a friend. Maybe some other show will come up that we'll both like....

[entropy156.livejournal.com]

We were fortunate enough to have caught Skinny Puppy in Portland two weeks ago at the Convergence 13 show...a show which featured a reunion with Bill Leeb at the end. It did not suck.

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

Nice! FLA played here not long ago, but I wasn't able to make it.