Rachmaninov Plays Rachmaninov

I mentioned earlier about the field trip to the CSO. I forgot to mention what they played. It was Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto 2, and it was amazing. At the very beginning, the piano starts out with several bell like chords which break into a series of rolling notes that are finally accompanied by the violins -- I had chills. So beautiful! (Listen and watch here.)

During the tour of the stage we learned that the first person to play that piece in Symphony Hall was Rachmaninov himself. What would that have been like?! The day we were there, the pianist was Kirill Gerstein, and I'm sure he was just as good.

Total Cost: $0 for the live concert, $10 to download the entire piece from iTunes.

1 New Message

To: Reader's of my blog
From: RissieGrace
Subject: Cute Movie

Hi all,
I've been at school late every night this week grading papers. While I work, I watch shows on hulu, and I found this Christmas themed one tonight.
Very funny. Had to share. Hope you can enjoy it too!
Merry Christmas Season!
xxoo,
Rissie

http://www.hulu.com/watch/113712/disney-prep-and-landing-prep-and-landing

Total Cost: $0 to break the silence while I check in homework.

Blindsided

Last weekend I went to see “The Blind Side” and it was wonderful. I left the theater feeling happy and hopeful, thinking about all the great things that I could do to make a difference in someone else’s life. The movie obviously showed the stark contrasts between rich and poor, but it also contrasted grateful and ungrateful, patient and impatient, thoughtful and thoughtless.

One part that I found very striking was when Michael was picking up discarded popcorn after a volleyball game because he had nothing else to eat. It doesn’t take much to help someone in a situation like that. Even someone who is living large on a small income can help. Besides, happiness is the real goal of life, and happiness is not about what we have, but what we share with love.

Anyway, Ruben Navarrette apparently felt the same way about the movie and wrote about it in his column. It’s a good read – especially the part about giving his kid a paper route for Christmas.

Total Cost: $10 for the movie ticket, and in the words of Leigh Anne Tuohy, “you can thank me later.”

Planning to Plan

Well. Memorial Day is coming up, and I have decided that I would like to go camping over that weekend. When I say camping, I mean that I would like to do some hiking, some swimming, some campfire sitting by ... stuff like that. It's still in the planning-on-planning stage, but right now it sounds fun. Amazingly enough, I got the idea from this hilarious Top Gear challenge. Hilarious.

click here to watch

Total Cost: $0 ... so far.

SPACE: the final frontier

So, this past weekend I saw the new Star Trek movie and I thought it was great. The characters were pretty well developed and the CGI stuff was kept to a minimum (or maybe they're getting better at it). There was pleanty of action for people who like action, and plenty of plot for people who like plot. There was even some quality humor.

Watching this prequel gave me a renewed interest in watching the original Star Trek episodes (which I had never seen). I was curious to see where these characters and plot points came from. So, last night I sat down with a cup of tea and a stack of papers to grade and watched two episodes on youtube.

They were hilarious. The costumes, the hair, the makeup, the dialogue, the computers, the "special" effects. Didn't they realize (in 1966) that astronauts weren't using microfiche?! Funny, funny, funny. I would definitely recommend!

click here to watch

Total Cost: $7.00 for the matinee. Not bad for a weeks worth of entertainment.