Saturday was a day full of pure entertainment. Earlier in the week, Jen C. came across an advertisement for the play Plaid Tidings, the sequel to the smash hit Forever Plaid. We originally saw this comedy/musical about a barbershop quartet that comes back from the dead for one last performance during our freshman year in college, and we’ve been waiting for an opportunity to see it ever since. The play was hilarious, as expected, but not nearly as hilarious as seeing herds of elderly white people decorated in various plaid garments. Older men generally stuck to the standard plaid shirt or the classic plaid cardigan, while the women were a little more edgy, sporting plaid skirts, tights, and matching socks. Here, we have an example of “theme-dressing”, another time-honored American tradition nearly as embarrassing as the middle-aged house wife wearing the red sweater with the giant Christmas Tree patch or the same middle-aged woman wearing the orange sweater with a giant Thanksgiving turkey on it. Hi, do us all a favor, and throw those things in a fire. Thanks.
Another memorable moment from our Plaid Tidings experience came when Jen and I were picking up our tickets at will call. Much to Jen’s dismay, I was suddenly reminded of our first Phoenix Coyotes hockey game together with Pejman and Richard. As you will find, this was not Jen’s day. As we were walking to the arena, someone mentioned that we needed to pick up the tickets from will call, to which Jen asked, “Who is this Will guy you are supposed to meet?”. After several attempts to convince her that we were not meeting someone named “William Call”, we came to realize that we were on the wrong side of the stadium, to which Jen asked, “Why can’t we just walk through the stadium to get to the box office? It would be much faster than going around.” We let that one slide, and everything went well for Jen until the 3rd period when Coyotes player Dallas Drake scored an important goal. We stood and chanted along with the rest of the crowd “Dallas Drake! Dallas Drake!”. Had Jen not continued to chant after the crowd quieted down, we wouldn’t have noticed her singing “Tell it straight! Tell it straight! Tell it straight!”.
Ok, back to the present. After the play, Jen, Joy, Ivonne, Carlos, and I gathered at the Cinema Deluxe to see the final installment of The Lord of the Rings. As was done for The Matrix Revolutions, I reserved prime seats in the IMAX theater, setting up what was going to be the greatest movie experience of the year. That is, until the previews were preempted with a message stating that this film was being shown on standard 35mm film and was not designed to take advantage of the IMAX video or sound quality. In other words, we paid 15 bucks to sit in comfortable chairs and watch The Return of the King projected onto a pretty big screen. I sincerely hope the mix-up wasn’t directly related to my disappointment with the movie. Well, that’s enough of ROTK talk… I’m going to write a review tomorrow and then post it along with several others.
* Do People Know They Are Doing This of the Day: Making the quotation mark gesture with their fingers while saying words “that” don’t need to be quoted.
* Movie Quote of the Day: “It’s the deep breath before the plunge.”
December 21, 2003
arts