#how to wash a check kimberly akimbo

[twigstarpikachutroll22]

Too many songs out there about romance, not enough songs about committing check fraud.

[connyhascontrol]

hiii conny happy spotify wrapped!! can u do 69 (hehe) 77 41 22 4 90 and 87

Char!! of course!! thank you

69. (hehe nice) How to wash a check from Kimberly Akimbo

77. ABBA - Waterloo

41. Robyn - Call your girlfriend

22. Vienna Teng - Stray Ialian greyhound

4. The Oh Hellos - Where is your rider

90. Dario Marianelli - Liz on top of the world

87. oskar's mum - Sun

[phanfinger]

Last Saturday I saw the tour of Kimberly Akimbo. I really enjoyed it!

The only two songs I had heard previously was the Anagram song on the Tony’s and How to Wash a Check from my partner’s spotify randomly playing it. So the only things I gathered were: Kimberly likes this teenage boy and Kimberly looks so old that someone is using her for bank fraud?

And yeah, they basically do. She gets away with it which is wild.

Anyway, I see why this musical won best musical at the Tony’s. I also see why it didn’t last super long. It’s very quirky and unique. It cannot be commercialized. I like that in a musical honestly.

So if Kimberly Akimbo comes to a city near you, you should see it. It has a lot of interesting things to say.

[popblank]

Kimberly Akimbo at the Pantages Theatre:

This is the first show I have seen in over 2 months; between trying to catch up on work and life (not to mention trying to study up on the 20+ items on my ballot this year), seeing more shows hasn't been top of mind. Happily, this was a fun way to start a new season of theater.

I saw this show in early 2023 on Broadway and remember being surprised by how much I liked it (and it ended up being my most-played album that year). It surprised me again after seeing it again, because while there are a lot of dark comic elements, it still ends up feeling sunny and sweetly poignant.

Carolee Carmello was terrific as Kimberly – in particular, she makes her voice sound convincingly stage-youthful, but with an occasional raspy edge of age which feels slightly unsettling given Kimberly's condition. Sometimes while singing she also would slide into the fuller tone of a adult woman and it was very effective in conveying the sense of someone who is forced by her illness and by her dysfunctional family situation to be both physically older and emotionally more mature than she ought to be. Even having seen the show before, it was very much worth seeing again for her performance.

More quick thoughts, including spoilers:

On the whole I think the show works well in tour form. The cast is particularly strong; several of them came from the Broadway cast including Miguel Gil as Seth (who I saw last year, and also sang the role in the NPR Tiny Desk performance). However it does still feel like a show that is better for a smaller space; there are a lot of individual introspective moments, and though there are songs that feel musically "bigger" or more expansive, the way it is presented on stage seems mostly grounded in mundane, human reality. (It doesn't have the heightened showy-ness of The Prom, for example.) I had a pretty good seat, but the costume reveal later in Act II would have had a lot more impact closer to the stage.

I don't think the staging changed significantly from Broadway. The Skater Planet rental desk may have changed sides (?). They did do the ice skating onstage in "This Time" and it was still pretty delightful. During intermission I was not surprised to overhear a nearby audience member wondering how they managed it. There was no turntable, so "The Inevitable Turn" was just played with the family seated around three sides of the table and angled toward the audience.

My favorite song has always been "How to Wash a Check" and it did not disappoint. :) The show choir kids with their farcical teenage dramas and close harmonies are one of my favorite parts of the show, and the repeat of the line "the glue trap is stuck to my head" has never failed to make me laugh.

Aunt Debra seemed slightly more butch than I remember; it's a character interpretation that hadn't occurred to me before.

It looks like they've changed some of the logo art - the primary image used to be Kimberly with her candy necklace, but now the focus is on the Six Flags Great Adventure-style rainbow logo.

I was very tempted to buy a "Skater Planet" shirt but couldn't convince myself to spend $50 on it.

Strongly considered seeing it yet again, and actually could have gotten a lottery ticket but passed because I couldn't spare the time. Maybe I'll try when the tour goes to Orange County next year.

[nullpointerintime]

Better - Bonnie Milligan (from Kimberly Akimbo)

Week of January 29, 2024 A song from a musical

[popblank]

Year-end personal goals and culture roundup for 2023:

Goals

My goals were not a priority this year because I severely underestimated how much time I would spend working, so the results are a little sparse. The things that I did do (reading, Duolingo, theater minus the personal notes) were either established habits or escapes from work.

Culture stuff:

Read ten books: mostly done (9/10). Not too bad really.

Finish seasons 2 and 3 of Supergirl: not done; not even close.

Take a few notes on everything I see live (though may or may not post): not done; actually did worse than last year. Seeing more things probably made this a bit more difficult.

Getting out goals:

Walk more: not done. Spent a lot of time sitting this year. Unfortunately exercise of any kind still feels like extra work, not a habit.

Run an organized 5K: not done. The running part would be in addition to the walking.

Visit a historic site: not done. Technically the Pasadena Playhouse is a state historical landmark but I did not actually learn about its history (or visit for that purpose), which was meant to be part of this goal.

Political/civic engagement goals

Read more (very) local news: not done. Trying to be more engaged in my community, not getting there.

Other stuff

Complete the Swedish language path in Duolingo: Done even though Duolingo repeatedly restructured their language paths and I ended up skipping several units in order to avoid repeating sentences like "min osthyvel är trasig" for 180 more lessons.

Theater

See separate post here

Music

I cannot claim that "Norwegian Pop" counts as branching out from my usual Eurovision-adjacent listening habits since that layer is 95% Ulrikke. Most-played album was Kimberly Akimbo (Original Broadway Cast Recording), most-played song was "How to Wash a Check" from that show. Most played non-theater song was "Tattoo" by Loreen.

Television

Finished the most recent season of The Great British Bake Off which was thoroughly enjoyable. Liked Alison Hammond as the new host and the return to non-gimmicky challenges. Otherwise I didn't watch much TV other than a few stray episodes of Forged in Fire at the end of the year.

Movies

Still not much of a moviegoer; watched a couple things streaming:

Black Crab (an action thriller with ice skating!)

The Banshees of Inisherin

Books

See separate post here