Moomin Light

"Flight of the Bumblebee" - Sandy Feat/Sir James Galway/Canadian Brass

Yesterday, younger son and I headed over to the West Point on the Eno park in Durham to see the sand sculpture from the Festival for the Eno.*  Every year, the sand sculpting group, Sandy Feat, makes a large sand sculpture about the yearly Festival theme.  This year, bees were the theme (click here).  

 The bees are launching one of their number with fireworks, bombs, and explosives.  

This one is giving the rider a boost.

The stinger of the rider.

The other side

Since they have four "arms," this one can light the explosives with one claw...

...while covering its ears with two more.

 

I always enjoy the sand sculpture, but, this year, I really got a kick out of it because the name is from one of my favorite classical pieces to play on the flute.  

Back in 1981, as reported by the New York Times, the flutist, Sir James Galway, challenged the Canadian Brass to see which could play Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumblebee the fastest:  

It all began last weekend at the Chautauqua Music Festival in upstate New York when James Galway, the Irish flutist, played ''The Flight of the Bumblebee'' in 52.45 seconds. Mr. Galway challenged the Canadian Brass to play the Rimsky-Korsakov piece faster.

''We were at a distinct disadvantage Tuesday night when we accepted the challenge,'' Chuck Daellenback, a tuba player with the Canadian Brass, said yesterday in Toronto.

''I play the piece on the tuba, and not only is the instrument unwieldy, but halfway through my hand gets cramped, and Ronnie Romm, our trumpeter, must continue the fingering while I continue to blow the horn.''

The Canadian Brass was clocked at 60.05 seconds, but Mr. Daellenback figured that because of all the problems involved playing ''The Flight of the Bumblebee'' on the tuba, ''we were entitled to an eight-second handicap and we declared ourselves the winners.''

Then, on Tuesday night in Toronto, the Canadian Brass tried harder and huffed and puffed its way through in 55 seconds. 

One of  Sir James Galway's Bumblebee videos:

 

Canadian Brass:

 

 

2007 Festival sand sculpture post

 

 * I'm still not really sweating (since my partial thyroidectomy) so, unfortunately, I wasn't up for going to the Festival in upper 80's & really humid weather this year.  

"A Drop in the Bucket: Big Dreams of Tiny Things" - Paperhand Puppet Intervention

A lot has happened the last few months* so I haven't been blogging.  However, a new, wonderful, Paperhand show can get me blogging again!

Here are some of my favorite photos from tonight's show.  Shows continue on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings at 7 pm (and some matinees) at the Forest Theater in Chapel Hill - through September 7 - with performances at the Art Museum in Raleigh the following weekend.  For more details, check their website.  

Some of the Tiny Things

   

 

 

   

 

 

  

 

 

  

* Having a wonderful time being a Hot Box Girl in a community theater production in July and a not wonderful time with a partial thyroidectomy two weeks ago.  I'm healing well, though (so far).  

Elephant rolls

Last year, dear husband drew on the printed-out recipe I'd left on the island in the kitchen.  We now call these "elephant rolls:"

Seussical - Orange Community Players

If you're in the Triangle area of NC, please come see the Orange Community Players production of Seussical!

Come see Les Misérables in Burlington!

The Gallery Players' production of Les Misérables opens Friday evening in Burlington, NC.  It's going to be wonderful!  Here's the performance information:

Paramount Theater of Burlington
Feb.21-23 and Feb.27-Mar 2
Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings at 8PM
Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2PM
336-222-8497 to reserve tickets (Call between 12 and 3pm or leave a voice-mail with information)

Here's the event Facebook page, with information and a great photo of the cast, and here's the Gallery Players Facebook page with some more photos.

"Dance at Bougival" at the Alamance Arts Council

Renoir's Dance at Bougival is one of my favorite paintings.  A few years ago, the Alamance Arts Council had an exhibit of sculptures of various paintings (article about the exhibit here).  Unfortunately, we didn't have a chance to see it.  

We did notice that one of the sculptures, based on Dance at Bougival, stayed in front of the Arts Council even after the exhibit closed (two years ago).  A few weeks ago, when we went to the Lego exhibit there, we finally had a chance to see the sculpture, Turn of the Century by J. Seward Johnson, in person (rather than from the van window):  

 Here's a view from right next to the sculpture:

 Close-up

• Other sculptures by J. Seward Johnson

N.C. Botanical Garden

It was a beautiful, though chilly, day today.  Very unusually, I didn't have any errands I needed to run on the way home from Zumba so I stopped by the Botanical Garden for a very peaceful walk.  There were almost no other visitors there.  

L"Homme Vert by Forrest C. Greenslade

The Garden is having their annual Sculpture in the Garden exhibit.

Blue lobelia

Dolphin's Leap by Douglas Tilden

Fragrant gladiolus

Angel's-trumpet

How October Mountain Got Its Name or Cock-A-Doodle-Do by Lynn Wartski

This is one of my two favorites.

Sunflower Gate III by Jim Gallucci

This is my other favorite.

Leaves on a beautiful tree in the parking lot

"The Art of the Brick" - Nathan Sawaya, Alamance Arts Council

This exhibit has been at the Arts Council in Graham (1/2 hour away from us) since right after the summer musical ended.  I kept putting off going to it because we had so much else going on.  After not going last week because of my allergic reaction, I was about to give up on getting to it since it closes tomorrow.  However, I looked up more on the artist, and found this video:

After watching it, both younger son and I decided we wanted to go see the exhibit.  We also watched a fun Stephen Colbert interview (not embedded because it autoplays).

I'd heard that the exhibit has been very crowded so we wanted to get there when it opened.  We did get there that early - along with 160 elementary school students.  The exhibit is in three rooms of the old house that the Arts Council is in and in one room of the Children's Museum next door.  

Tomorrow is the last day so if you don't get a chance to go, here is some of what you missed:

He does portraits of his wife in Legos.

 

One of my favorites - The Kiss

 

Self-portrait

Mount Rushmore:  I was the most surprised by this because it seemed the least unusual and creative work there.  It turned out that it was voted on in a "What Should Nathan Make" adventure.

Another one of my favorites.  I wish it didn't have the reflections, but it was getting pretty crowded at this point, and it was difficult to get photos without someone in front...

...or someone behind.  I (clumsily) Photoshopped a small Snow White and her mother out of the back of this photo.  I love the reflection in this one!

I'm currently reading Summerland (very good!) so this went along well.

Think!

 

Another favorite

• Alamance County Arts Council
• The Art of the Brick:  There are actually three different shows right now so you can see works from other shows too.  
• Nathan Sawaya's Facebook page

 

Choreography on the Emmys

I'm so glad a friend had a Facebook post about the choreography performance on the Emmys since I hadn't seen it.

They got the nominated choreographers to get together and choreograph a dance for the show, and it had to include the host, Neil Patrick Harris.  Apparently, for the first time, they were going to announce the award for best choreography on the evening show.  

The only TV show I even try to keep up with is So You Think You Can Dance (surprise!), and I didn't even get through the whole season this year because it takes place at the same time as the summer musical.  More than half of the nominated choreographers were from SYTYCD so I actually knew something about this category!  

Other than SYTYCD, I'm pretty clueless about what's on TV (except for Sherlock and that doesn't happen all that often).  Oh, I have heard of a number of the shows - Breaking Bad, Black is the New Orange, Mad Men, etc.  I'd heard of Game of Thrones, but I didn't know it was a TV show.  

I have watched one episode of Downton Abbey.  I loved it, but nobody else was watching it with me so I didn't have anyone to discuss it with.  Maybe someday.  In general, we end up watching more movies than anything else, and there are so many of them to watch (or rewatch with our kids - this week, we rewatched Harvey, and X Men, both of which younger son was seeing for the first time).

Back to the choreography performance:  I loved seeing all the different styles (the dance itself starts at 2:00):

I always enjoy Neil Patrick Harris so, after watching this, I wondered why I hadn't at least taped* the Emmy Awards to watch later.  When I watched the opening skit, which was fun, I realized why I hadn't.  I looked at the actors & actresses in the audience and realized that, unless they're from movies or Broadway, I don't know who they are.  This is unlike the Tony Awards, where I know who lots of the performers are, even though I haven't seen a live Broadway performance since older son was born!

I also found it interesting that they started the dance with a Broadway song!

 

* Yes, very old fashioned.  However, as little as I watch, why get the current technology (which will be outdated in five years anyway)?!

"Growth of the New Gods" - Mel Chin

The grapes are made out of basketballs, and the leaves are made from basketball nets.  This sculpture by Mel Chin is at the Asheville Art Museum: