Aimee, Popop, and I went to see Ani Difranco Wednesday night at the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa, stopping for burgers at In-N-Out on the way. I've pretty much given up fast food, but I make an exception for In-N-Out. Anyway, we had seats in the Center on the side balcony, right above Ani and the teeming lesbian hordes. It was once of the best performances I've ever seen her give. Her new horn player Todd Horton was amazing, complementing the other musicians in her band nicely. She giggled as she tried to get her fingers to do what they were supposed to do on "Out of Range," spat fire as she delivered a new poem about the state of our nation, and sang her damn heart out. Maybe it was the intimacy of the venue, or maybe I was just in the right emotional place to hear "Hour Follows Hour," "Swan Dive," and "Dilate" all in quick succession.

Karen, JD, DVB, Deb, and I conquered both halves of Carquinez Strait Regional Shoreline Saturday morning, and I returned home to find a message from Luini asking me if I wanted to catch some movies with him that afternoon. I jumped in the shower and barely gave my hair any time to dry before I was back out the door. We saw The Royal Tenenbaums (I'd seen it but Jon hadn't and I love Wes Anderson and it was just as good the second time) and The Count of Monte Cristo. The Count kicked ass. Beautiful scenery, gorgeous sets and costumes, and, oh, the manflesh. So what if it didn't quite grapple with all the complexities of vengeance and justice, at that moment I just wanted to watch an entertaining movie. James Caviezel had my loyalty, but Guy Pearce was a wonderful Mondego who oozed oily evil. Richard Harris, James Frain, Luis Guzmán, and Michael Wincott were all great in supporting roles.

Important note to self: just because I get a lot of exercise in the morning does not mean I can then proceed to eat crap all day and get away with it. Bleah.

I remained in downtown Berkeley Saturday evening for a performance of Ionesco's Rhinoceros at Berkeley Rep. I first encountered Ionesco in college when I wrote a paper on The Bald Soprano; I can honestly say I had no idea what I was writing about. I've also seen Rhinoceros once before at, appropriately enough, Theatre Rhinoceros, where Berenger was played as a lesbian and the cafe patrons did lines of coke as they discussed syllogisms. This performance wasn't quite that raucous, though there was plenty of mayhem and destruction as the rhinos started to assert themselves. I loved that they opened the play with Charles Trenet's "Boum" and that they had a real dog dressed to play the cat. Rhinoceros appeals to me the most when there is a lot happening onstage, when everything is getting jumbled and yet making perfect sense. When there are only two characters onstage it gets a bit heavyhanded. I thought Berkeley Rep did some really clever things with the staging, and Jarion Monroe as Jean had a fabulous transformation scene. Ultimately I prefer the sassiness of the Theatre Rhinoceros version, however.

Previous Ani
Carquinez Strait Regional Shoreline
The Royal Tenenbaums
The Count of Monte Cristo
Berkeley Repertory Theatre