Beth Winter

There's a cycle of open-air musical theatre performances running at an amphitheatre in town, and I took the opportunity to catch Jesus Christ Superstar as performed by the Teatr Rozrywki w Chorzowie. Hey, it was free :)

( Remarks on the musical and this particular production )

I'm wondering whether to give the same theatre a chance and go to Katowice to see their Jekyll & Hyde. It's another show with lovely songs and stumbling plot that requires careful direction, so I fear the end result might be the same frustration.

Sometimes, life makes me feel like stabbing someone in the gut. Since that would be unprofessional, instead I have to withstand the same sensation from my own body as it gives under the stress.

At times like these, I find it calming to think that nothing lasts forever, and that I always have writing to turn to. I've been worried over the past year or so, as my creative output all but dried up and I could not even get the motivation to write on request. I'm amazingly grateful to penknife and mireille719 for lgbtfest, which dealt with my fears nicely.

There's nothing like finding that a fresh issue to explore and toy with (and one that has interested me for half a lifetime - genderqueerness and gender identity). And most of all, there is nothing like writing stories for an audience that is 100% disparate from my LJ acquaintances - and getting positive reviews. It makes me believe that I can go somewhere with my writing; that apart from style, I have substance, original characters and emotional arcs.

(Plot will be the next thing I'll work on. I promise :P)

I missed two deadlines for this fic, but got it in just under the wire once I stopped fighting the characters about its direction:

Marching Orders - Discworld, Polly and Maladicta - The next war, and where they take it

(3,000 words, 2 days. Yes, I've still got it.)

As demanded, here are photos of my new lodger. As far as I've been able to determine, he is very much in looks and behaviour (squeaking) to a Norwegian Forest Cat, which means he'll be about 10kg when grown - right now he's 0.6kg of fluffy hairball. Oops?

( Monsieur Fluffy )

And in the continuing adventures of Beth versus actual commercially available DVDs of musicals, I've finally watched something I've had for a while - Romeo et Juliette, the Gerard Presgurvic version, as recorded in 2001 in Paris. I have to say that even with all the pop music, this is one of the most artistic musicals. The French seem to have a gift for them.

( Amazingly fun musical. Why did no-one tell me it had Death in it? )

Unfortunately, this DVD is out of print at the moment. But the good news is, enterprising people have uploaded all of it to Youtube :) Between them, "selenityrose" and "faelivrinen" have all the tracks. Some samples:

Verone (first song of the musical
)
J'ai peur (originally a Mercutio song, given to Romeo because he's the only one not noticeably shorter than Death)

C'est pas ma faute (Tybalt angst)

Apparently on a talent show on ZDF this spring, they had a musicals theme and Uwe Kröger as a judge. This makes for entertaining clips of him making faces as people torture German and English musicals.

But this is something else. They had Villazon as a guest star, because apart from being Caruso Jr, he's also done Man of La Mancha. Which he did admirably - guy's got a siege weapon of a voice on him.

And then he and the host went and did Always look on the bright side of life. Yes, from Spamalot. Monty Python. My brain!

(Video under cut, because I refuse to be the only one traumatised.)

( Bad and wrong and yay )

Got back yesterday near midnight and was so exhausted I fell into bed without even touching the computer. Reviews will be up tonight or tomorrow. In the meantime, highlights of my Berlin trip:

- seeing Uwe Kröger, twice. No Pia, but oh, UWE. No more watching certain Hungarians for you, the set'll fall apart!
- Spargel - height of the season, and oh, they were delicious
- lovely Roman-inspired sandals and a jacket that cost far too much
- stuffed alligator O.o

I'm watching the Les Miserables 10th Anniversary Concert (more on which, and the book, later), and after Act 1 I made the mistake of looking up Michael Maguire on Youtube.

His voice in Music of the Night has left me spellbound

There's something about his emotion... oh gods, why doesn't this man act more?

Fandom: Greek Mythology

Characters: Hermaphroditos, Thanatos

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: Inspired by the story of Hermaphroditos in Ovid's Metamorphoses

Prompt: 546. Mythology - Greek: Hermaphroditus. How does his assimiliation with the nymph immediately affect him and his sexuality?

Summary: After Hermaphroditos pronounces his curse.

Author's Notes: With great thanks to shriker_tam for beta-reading. Written for lgbtfest.

( Blood of Salmacis )

Out of curiosity, has anyone had any experience with a Lenovo ThinkPad R61?

Our office has the T60s, and while I'm on a Dell, the ThinkPad squad like theirs. Since my home computer is hitting the 6 year mark this June, it's time for something new. And June 30 will be the stop-mark for new computers with Windows XP - I can definitely do without Vista for the moment, though the R61 is Vista-ready.

The configuration I'm eyeing would be 2GB of RAM, 2GHz dual Intel, 160GB hard drive. I think this would last me a while - not necessarily another six years, but at least three - considering my main home tasks are done in Firefox, MS Office (2002) and the now elderly Paint Shop Pro 8, plus whatever forays I make into GIMP and Inkscape. I'd miss the smooth Dell curves, but somehow the ThinkPad seems to have more personality to it. I think it looks like a Bob, or possibly a Logan.

I first noticed Bruno Pelletier in Notre Dame de Paris, as recommended by fyrie, about two years ago. On Youtube, there were clips of him doing various things, including appearing in something that looked... strange. The music was great, the French lyrics had vivid imagery, but the costumes? The flames? I googled it and came up with Dracula: Entre l'amour et la mort.

The CD has been out for a long time, and it gets regular airtime in my house. The DVD of the musical was recorded in November 2006 and came out last month. I now have it in my hands and all I can say is: Whoa. This is what a Dracula musical should be.

( Rambling review, hampered by my half-fluent French )

And some Youtube clips to whet your appetite:

Dracula and Lucy's meeting (promotional video)

Concert version of the philosophical discussion between Dracula, Jonathan and Renfield

Digest of DVD scenes