#i've heard the song a fair number of times & always enjoyed it a lot. high energy & fun; a little goofy in great ways in subj & sonic style

[unproduciblesmackdown]

in the power of Noticing Things The Xth Time Around the instrumentals-imitative "doot. doot. doot. dooWAH" vocals that kick in during the second verse of centerfold? superlative

[best-movie-ever-tournament]

What's your favorite musical from the bracket? Feel free to wait until it's eliminated to answer.

I'll be honest with you, I don't know a lot of musicals (kinda started this tournament to get recs, honestly). At least that's what I thought until i realised i had seen a bunch of the submissions. Now, granted, it was particularly popular ones, not the nichest ones, but still.

Anyway, I have a bunch of favorites, and I'll reblog this post at the end of every round with the list of eliminated movies I know and like.

For this round, we have, by alphabetical order:

Duck Soup (1933): It's completely silly and nonsensical, and I can't stand anyone involved in the plot, but it's also a great movie. The number of one liners I still quote, the entire jab at governments in general and dictatorships in particular... Groucho Marx being a gold digger and an asshole isn't new, Harpo having a horn and miming stuff isn't new, Chico speaking with a fake italian accent isn't new, but I absolutely love it anyway.

Into the Woods (2014): I know, i know, the stage musical is better, but consider: i haven't seen the stage musical. I do realise that most of what I love about it probably comes straight out of the musical itself, but there's also Meryl Streep so there's that. The first half is absolutely great and I don't care much for the second half even if there are still some bangers (the song about who's at fault and the Last Midnight among others)

My Fair Lady (1964): Haven't watched it since I was a child, and in the mean time I've learned how to speak english and what phonetics were, so I'm sure I would enjoy it even more. I can't remember much about it apart from what is common knowledge though.

Sing (2016): It's cute and funny and deep and not-so-deep and there's friendship and I'm not even a fan of animated musicals, anthro animals or the musical genre of most of the songs but. Consider. It's so good.

The Court Jester (1955): Absolute banger. Put it in front of a musical i had never heard of on the first round because I had high hopes for it. Well c'est la vie. Anyway you absolutely have to watch it. It aged very well I think, despite what the promotional materials show. It's got fencing and true love and torture and masked vigilantes and musical numbers and dancing and honestly this is my Princess Bride. Like everyone on tumblr is always like "princess bride is my entire childhood" and then point at a comedy swashbuckler with a prince trying to get the hero's girlfriend, his right hand man who's sinister, etc. Meanwhile The Court Jester has everything of that and MORE! It has a tender male lead, it has comedy at every corner, and more importantly, it is my whole childhood. I blame it for making me learn english in the first place (we only had it in english with subtitles).

The Inspector General (1949): Adapted from a russian play and yet it feels like preparatory work for The Court Jester in some way. It's still a banger don't get me wrong, and keep in mind that the version i have is not a very legal one and the image definition is very very bad. It still manages to pull through as great. I love it.

[enfyswanders]

London, Part 2: June 23-26, 2024

My friends, have you heard about our Lord and Savior, ABBA Voyage?

My friends Molly and Josh encouraged me to check it out. I like several ABBA songs, so I decided one of my big splurges for the trip would be a dance booth ticket for a matinée.

I was expecting a high-tech concert experience. I was not expecting to sob for the first 20 minutes.

But let me back up. What the heck is ABBA Voyage? It's a concert featuring holograms of the band ABBA in their heyday. Their prerecorded vocals and instruments are backed up by a live band that's shrouded in shadow for much of the show, but is occasionally brought out and featured. The venue is an arena specifically built for this show, in London's outskirts.

Walking into the arena, my first impression was "This is Pride for women in their 60s and 70s." The sheer joy from that demographic, with many of them wearing colorful, spangled jumpsuits, brought joy to my heart. (I didn't get a photo of any of the bejumpsuited people., but trust me, there were a lot of them. A fair number of them under 30, too!)

The dance booth ticket, while one of the priciest ticket tiers, was worth it. The dance booth is an area for 12 people that includes a cushioned bench for seating, plus a lower level open area for dancing, and you get a private bar and table service, too. I had two delicious passionfruit cocktails waiting for the show to begin.

When the show started, I got emotionally overwhelmed in a way I absolutely did not expect.

Feeling 1: This is the biggest arena show I've been to since well before the pandemic. There's something beautiful about so many people gathered to enjoy music together.

Feeling 2: I'm both excited and terrified for the implications this event has on the future of musical performance. On the one hand, it could make it much easier to see acts more places and after people have passed on. On the other hand, we lose the authenticity of live performance. Not a hair was out of place, no flubbed lyrics, no sweaty sheen on the performers' faces. They lampshaded the concept a little by doing a bit about a costume change gone wrong, but it kind of made me cringe. The show is, and will always be, perfect. In removing the precious ephemeral nature of live musical performance, what else are we losing?

Feeling 3: This is the closest I have ever come to a true time machine experience, and wow was it moving to "see" ABBA in their prime, something I could only do on video before.

Feeling 4: Traveling is Just So Much. I needed a release after everything from the first week.

So I cried for the first 20 minutes, huddled in a corner of the dance booth bench. I don't cry very often, so it really took me by surprise. Once I was done, I got up and danced a whole bunch.

Some interesting pieces of the show were having three femme vocalists from the live band perform "Does Your Mother Know"; an animated two-part short; some fun banter from ABBA; clips from their 1974 Eurovision entry; and at the end, there are holograms that come out for a curtain call that look like the band members do today, which I think was a nice touch.

Honestly, the whole thing was a religious experience. I was deeply moved and it made me think about the world in a different way. I will forgive them not playing my favorite ABBA song, "Take a Chance on Me," because the whole thing was just so amazing.

After the show, I had my first of many Adventures in Doing Laundry on the trip. I found a few coin-op laundry places near my hotel, but based on reviews they only took coins, specifically £1 coins, which is complicated because most businesses in London are contactless or card payment only, so I didn't get a lot of change. I asked at my hotel if I could buy some £1 coins, but all they had were £2 coins, which I took, and hoped for the best. Some of the online reviews mentioned that staff at the coin-ops could make change.

Unfortunately, this was a Sunday afternoon, and no staff were present. The first laundromat I visited only took £1 coins and there was no way to make change. Fortunately, the second laundromat I checked did take £2 coins, and I got to enjoy the sticker shock that it cost £20 to do a single load of laundry (about USD$25). While I sat there, I had a nice chat with a couple from Brisbane, where I used to live, and made friends with an older woman named Sharon, who I ended up meeting up with for dinner by chance after I brought my laundry back to my hotel. She was really fun to chat with, and gave me some tips for places to eat in the area.

The next day, I visited Kew Gardens Royal Botanical Gardens, which is enormous and I sadly didn't have time to wander the whole thing, or even most of it. I did get to enjoy the treetop walk, though, which was a really neat way to see the big old trees in the park from a different perspective. They had some neat sculptures, too.

Next up, I visited some Richmond locations from Ted Lasso, including his pub (renamed on the show to the Crown & Anchor), the door to his flat, and a really tacky souvenir shop that wanted a shocking £65 for a shirt. I had some fish and chips at the pub, and honestly, I wouldn't recommend the food. I don't think they've changed their fry oil in the past decade. They were also slammed with Ted Lasso fans and the staff did not seem to be happy about that fact.

After that, I decided to go see Big Ben, just to check if off the list, since it's such an iconic site. Dear gods, never again. Up until this point, the obnoxious-tourist quotient of my trip had been pretty manageable, but when you exit the Tube near Big Ben, the sidewalk is completely slammed with tourists and con artists who have no sense of personal space.

I got a quick pic and booked it out of there, seeing the exteriors of Westminster Abbey and Parliament House quickly, and decided to return to Tate Britain, because I enjoyed it so much and it was fairly close by. I finally got a pic of my favorite piece there, a sculpture by Henry Moore called Reclining Figure:

I started my last full day in London visiting the Mithraeum, the ruins of an old temple to the Roman god Mithras, which was recommended by my friend Ron. It was super cool. There's a whole immersive light-and-sound experience with the ruins, to make you feel like you're in the temple when it was active. There's Latin chanting and everything.

Then I went to the British Museum. And if I thought the tourists outside Big Ben were obnoxious, well. There were a lot more of them at the British Museum. I mean, obviously I myself am a tourist, so I can extend some grace, but what annoys me is people who clearly don't have experience being in large crowds in cities having no spatial awareness and failing to notice that there are people trying to move around them, so they stop suddenly, that kind of thing.

The British Museum was crowded and only nominally air-conditioned in some places, so I was hot and uncomfortable the entire time. I only lasted about 90 minutes before I had to call it, which was a shame, because there is some cool stuff to see there. I think my favorite thing was the Rosetta Stone, but I didn't get a photo of that. Instead, you get to see this statue of Hermes:

After the museum, I had booked myself for high tea at a fancy place called The Wolseley, but the reservation wasn't for another hour, so I decided to check another popular destination off the list and go see Buckingham Palace.

Tea was absolutely wonderful. The warm currant scones scones were soft and moist, and the clotted cream and jam with them were absolutely scrumptious. The finger sandwiches (cucumber, salmon, chutney, curry chicken salad, and egg salad) were all very tasty, and the desserts were fantastic patisserie. I had an hibiscus herbal tea with it, and really my only complaint was that I didn't have a companion to enjoy the experience with. It was absolutely phenomenal and made me a quick convert to the joys of high tea. (And spoiled me for all future high teas on the trip, unfortunately!)

On my way back to my hotel, I spotted something a friend told me about, that I'd walked past every single day and hadn't noticed: There's a fucking TARDIS right by my Tube stop.

I guess the chameleon circuit still works okay.

This made me laugh: