Review - The Scarlet Pimpernel...in the Park

It's funny...when I first heard the soundtrack to the Scarlet Pimpernel musical years ago, I wanted to see it. Sadly, I missed out on any tours that came anywhere close to Salt Lake and it looked like it might be one of those I wouldn't ever see. And yet, I have now seen it 3 different times in the past year...at Hale Centre Theatre, Viewmont High School and most recently at the Murray Arts in the Park production.

Since I'd already seen the play twice recently, I probably wouldn't have purchased tickets to the Arts in the Park version...but since I won them, I was super excited to check it out.

Outdoor venues for plays leave me a little nervous. I've seen some places that do a great job. In fact, at the Utah Shakespearean Festival, I prefer their outdoor theatre to their indoor venues. But generally speaking, outdoor theaters have left a lot to be desired. I hadn't ever been to Murray Park, so I wasn't sure what to expect, but I didn't go in with overly high expectations for the venue.

The seating wasn't as good as indoor seating, but it was better than some of the concrete benches I've had outdoors before. We were placed on metal bleacher style benches which (fortunately) had back support as well. There was sufficient leg room and good elevation. They had decent lighting both for the stage and for ambient lighting, though perhaps they could benefit from a couple more high poweroverhead lights for the end of the night. The sound system was good and made for adequate listening experience...as long as the performers had mikes and their mikes were on. There were a few minor characters who had no microphones but had small solo lines and their lines were lost in the night air. There were a couple of times as well when the mikes were turned on too late for some of the primary characters. Audio problems like that are troublesome indoors but can be more so outdoors where there is more ambient noise and distraction.

Overall, the amphitheater was good and made for a fun experience. Even though the kids were a little fidgety (especially towards the end), I somehow felt a bit more relaxed about having them shuffle back and forth on the empty bleacher next to us (though I did still try to keep movement and noise to a minimum).

The production was well done as well. The actors were well cast and did a great job. There were one or two who seemed a bit nervous or inexperienced on the stage while there were others who completely hammed things up and were a ton of fun to watch. In both cases, these distracted somewhat from the primary characters on stage at the time...the hamming up and overacting came off as endearing and fun rather than as something to avoid.

Their stage was nice...a fairly average stage with good space but also with some creative use of wings and other areas off the stage proper. The orchestra is placed above and behind the main performance, which was kind of cool as we could see them better than in some venues. The setting, costumes and props were a lot of fun as well. As we arrived, Andrew saw some of the jail set sitting against the wall outside and we snapped a picture with him behind bars.

In the end, it was a great night and a lot of fun. The performance is general admission and priced at a community theater price which makes it accessible for family outings. They have a snack bar complete with grill so you can make a dinner outing as well (and the kids were overjoyed at the leniency in letting the goodies be taken to our seats).

Since it's outdoors, they didn't start the show until 8 PM which makes it a late night for young kids, but it was still fun. I'll have to keep an eye on their roster for future productions and perhaps take the family out there again.

And if you're a Pimpernel fan, the show is playing for another ~5 days so hop on down and take a look. It's not "professional broadway style theater", but it's well done and definitely a recommended community theater venue with professional flair.


3.5 out of 5 stars

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Review - The Red Pyramid

When I first read the general premise of this book, my first thought was that this was just going to be "the Percy Jackson series but with Egyptian mythology rather than Greek mythology." While that generalization is enough to provide some interest and insight into the book, it doesn't adequately describe what to expect. Still, it provides enough information for those who are familiar with Percy.

The general gist of the story is that you've got two kids…a sister and a brother. Their dad is an Egyptologist. Their mom is dead through mysterious circumstances. One night, he takes them to the museum in London and basically blows up an ancient artifact and releases some Egyptian gods into the world…one of whom has plans to destroy the world. The father is captured/killed and the kids take off running with the help of other Egyptian gods and mysterious family members on a quest to save the world.

Having read Riordan's Percy Jackson series, I had a general feel for his writing style and expected more of the same. The Red Pyramid changed up the style a little bit by having the brother and sister (Carter and Sadie) each take turns narrating the chapters. This provided some opportunity to alternate voice/tone/vocabulary/etc as well as to provide some different points of view into similar or related scenes. While the general style and voice of the characters didn't differ a whole lot, I thought it was fun to have these two alternating narrators.

Throughout the book we're given a spattering of Egyptian myth and history lessons and taken on a trip to various points around the world. Part of me felt like the "educational" aspect of this book was a little more overt than it was in the Percy series, but part of that could be that I don't know as much about Egyptian mythology and so I felt like I was learning more and paying closer attention. Whatever the case, the learning aspects came naturally as part of the story and didn't fell terribly forced.

What did feel a little over the top for me as an adult is the age of Carter and Sadie. I believe Carter is cast as 14 years old and Sadie as 12. Their attitudes and maturity and general behavior in the book made them feel at least a couple of years older than that. This isn't a huge problem and young readers won't notice or care at all. Some of the conversations and thoughts just felt a little off to me when I considered their ages.

A large thread in this book is the idea of who to trust to help unravel the mystery. The kids are whisked away by an uncle they hardly know, taken in by magicians (who at one point tried to kill them and now want to train them), torn between accepting the help of the gods or being told to avoid the gods. I felt like the conflict and tension was set up well and added some interesting plot points to keep the story interesting.

To a large extent this book became a general adventure/quest/journey novel as the kids are sent to find particular items and confront the big baddie to save the day. And yet, it had enough unique elements to keep the story interesting. I definitely found this book a little heavier (drier?) than the Percy Jackson series…again, I'm not sure if that's just a perception thing because I had to "learn" more about Egypt than I did about Greece or if perhaps this book is a little slower/denser.

Whatever the case, I found the story engaging and the characters fun. I enjoyed learning about Egyptian mythology and going on this adventure with the Kane kids. My kids also had fun with this book although they did have trouble keeping their interest up during the first couple of chapters until the action really got underway.

Generally speaking I still prefer the style and feel of the Percy series overall but I appreciate and like this book for the Egyptian tie and the fun story. We're starting book 2 now and my kids are glad that it's immediately starting off with more action.

Give it a try and let me know what you think.


3.5 out of 5 stars

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Happy Father's Day dad

Happy Father's Day dad. Here's a video just for you. ;)

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A Question of Music

I have a conundrum and would love your feedback…Just for fun, I'm going to take a trip down memory lane and explore how my current music collection was created. (Skip down to the bottom of the post for my conundrum if you don't want to read the lengthy history).

I love music. All kinds of music. My varied collection includes soft rock, hard rock, country, classical, kids music, disney soundtracks, latin, easy listening, religious, showtunes, alternative, pop, top 40, classic rock, and on and on. While I certainly don't have the "most" eclectic tastes around, I will gladly give any genre of music a chance and have found winners (and losers) all around. I have a moderately large collection of music purchased over the years and continue to buy music a few times a year (not nearly as often as I used to).

I enjoy and applaud technological advancements in music creation and distribution. But I've recently hit a conundrum.

As a kid, we only had one record store in town (and yes, they did sell records, though most of their product was Cassettes by then) and they were hideously overpriced. Add to that the fact that I was just a ~10 year old kid with minimal income opportunities and I figured I'd need to look at other venues.

So I discovered "record clubs." The older readers may remember these…in the back of a magazine or in a newspaper or tucked among the junk mail you'd find a sheet of paper showing off 50-100 albums. Your job was to pick anywhere from 4-10 (depending on the club) that you wanted for "free" (sometimes totally free, other times "just 1 penny" and other times pay for shipping and handling). They'd send you those albums (originally I got these on Cassette Tapes…then eventually moved to CDs) and you agreed to purchase some number of albums from them in the next 1-3 years.

I budgeted my money (cutting back on other less vital expenses like Garbage Pail Kids cards, toys, trips to the arcade and other fun stuff) to make sure I could by a couple of albums each year to fulfill my membership requirement…then I canceled, waited a few months and signed up again. Within a year, my music collection had exploded and I was on my way. I had dozens and dozens of tapes. I found that there were some times that I liked every song on the tape, but that was the exception. Most of the time I liked the single I'd heard on the radio (which had prompted the purchase) and maybe 3-4 other songs, but the rest of the tape I only listened to once and then skipped over after that.

Since I was getting the music pretty cheap (all things considered, I probably ended up averaging ~$20 for 6-8 albums) I didn't worry too much about it…but I did devote some money to buying blank cassettes and always keeping one in my tape recorder so I could quickly record songs off the radio rather than buying a full album blind.

As time went on, the blank cassette method took over for the record clubs and, while I still did record clubs from time to time, I mostly began recording songs from the radio or "dubbing" tape-to-tape recordings borrowed from friends and family. The mix tape was born. I held onto the original cassettes (in case of catastrophic eating of tape) but went ahead and transferred the songs I liked onto a few single tapes and tucked away the yawners. My collection continued to grow through radio recordings and borrowing from friends…I still purchased but now instead of 10-20/yr, I probably only purchased 4-5 tapes a year.

And then came the CD. I was a fairly early adopter…not first year, but probably a second year Christmas wish was for a CD player. I was bummed to find the cost of CDs ~30% more than tapes. But they were the new thing and they did sound good…plus it was cool not having to "rewind" or "fast forward" to find the song I wanted. I wired together my CD player and my tape deck to allow for continuing to create my own tapes. But as CDs became more and more prolific, I realized CDs were the way to go…so I hopped back into the Record Clubs and before long I had dozens of CDs. I was now into my teens so I had a "real" job and could afford to purchase albums at retail price (I still tried to avoid the overpriced record store in my hometown but sometimes the convenience won out).

Anyway, over the 20+ years of building my music collection, I've transitioned "mostly" away from cassettes (I still have a few dozen tapes tucked away that I haven't had time or inkling to transfer to CD) and have a few hundred CDs. Music stores began selling USED music and created a trade-in program. Most of the time the trade in value isn't great, but it allows me to get some new "use" out of those stinker albums that only have 1 or 2 good songs. I'd transfer my favorite songs to tape, trade in the disk and pick up something new (or new to me). I still purchased many albums blind but was able to extend the value thanks to trade-ins.

Naturally, the world continues to change and a decade or so back, MP3s became "the thing" for music. I admit to spending some time on Napster but I didn't have a CD burner or an MP3 player at the time so most of my newly acquired tunes from the early MP3 days vanished when various computer hard drives/systems died. Eventually I did get a CD burner but I still didn't have an MP3 player, so most of my music stayed on the computer…although I did create some backup disks with a bunch of MP3s and even burned a few "mix tapes" to CD.

I now have an iPod (actually a couple of iPods in the house plus a little Sony MP3 player) and I have (finally) "ripped" all of my CDs into digital format. I've even converted a number of favorite cassettes to digital. I haven't gotten around to transferring my records (yes, I have ~50 records) to digital format yet, but that's an eventual goal.


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Begin Conundrum

So that's my basic history of music collecting/buying…and now we arrive at my conundrum. I still frequent music stores that offer trade-ins and used music purchases…but if I'm buying new, I usually hit up the big box stores like Target, Walmart or Costco. I've generally stayed away from digital purchases for a couple of reasons: 1) I enjoy the album art and having a tangible element to my purchase. 2) I'm worried about losing my digital purchase due to computer failure (which has happened before).

I'm not as worried about the album art and tangible content anymore since I find that I seldom look at them anymore. And I'm less worried about the second issue because I have pretty robust backup in place on my computer and many/most of the digital outlets (amazon, itunes, etc) will let you re-download purchases.

Up until this year, I've only digitally purchased a few random songs here and there…songs I've heard on the radio or at a friends house or whatever. But this year, I had a pretty big credit balance on my iTunes account so I bought 2 full albums from a couple of artists that I generally enjoy. The price of the albums was comparable to what I might have found at a big box store…I probably saved $1/album by going digital. And one of the albums included an "enhanced digital book" that let me look at the album art/insert digitally.

Over the next few days, I listened to both of the albums. Both generally kept with the same style and presence of the artist…but neither album was what I'd call "great." There were a couple of songs that I moderately liked, but none that I'd add to a 'favorites' playlist. Even more sadly, as I listened, I found myself "not liking" the first album much at all. While it stayed mostly true to the artist's general style, she has taken a few steps in a direction that I'm not really keen on…and it made me sad.

My conundrum now is that I've purchased these digitally and completely lost out on any value extension. Had I paid the extra $1 to buy the physical copy at Target, I could take it down to the music store and trade it in and pick up something else. Yes I would lose a couple of bucks and it's possible that I wouldn't like everything on whatever new disk I got…but I'd get to continue the process and stretch my dollar. Instead, I'm out $8 and have no recourse but to just not listen anymore.

I suppose I could've or should've done more due-dilligence on my own and tried to find a place online where I could've listened to the entire album before purchasing blind. But since these were both new releases, it's possible I might not have been able to find the entire album online. I did listen to the "previews" in iTunes prior to buying, but those 15 second clips only really portrayed that it was the same style…they didn't show the turn towards the explicit (which is what turned me off).


OK…so that's my conundrum and my soap box. Over the years, I've loved buying music and finding a gem of a song buried in some deep cut of an album…something you'd never find unless you picked up the whole album. I've run across some stinkers but have been able to trade them in or otherwise extend the value. With the digital age, I can get "better deals" online but there's no way to extend the value on something that I purchase and decide I don't like. I can't "trade in" a digital purchase. Sure, I can go around just buying singles I've heard on the radio, but that doesn't expand my musical horizons or knowledge of an artist. Furthermore, if I feel like there's a chance I'll like a number of the songs on the album, it's usually cheaper to buy the whole album than to buy one song at a time after I've heard them…but I don't usually hear them all at once or haven't heard them all by the time I feel like buying.

I guess part of the answer may be to be a more active participant on music websites…listen to streaming media that helps mitigate purchasing garbage and leads me towards the singles I want. I've streamed from Pandora radio and hang out at a few artist websites from time to time, but I'm not sure of the best way to adequately find new music and to vet out an entire purchase prior to buying it.

Is there anyplace that gives a "listen before you buy" model? Something that in a 'kindle-esque' mode lets you "check out" an album and listen to it for a while and then buy it if you like it? I'd prefer the "check out" mode because I'd rather listen on my iPod than have to sit at my computer and play via a browser.


What do you guys do when you buy music? Do you still buy physical copies primarily? If you've gone digital, how do you reconcile buying garbage from time to time…or do you only buy songs you know you like? And if you buy entire albums digitally, how do you know you'll like the whole thing? Or do you just risk it and hope for the best?

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