Pink Martini with SF Symphony

Posted on July 9, 2009 by Jeff Tabaco

A couple of weeks ago we saw Pink Martini with the San Francisco Symphony, and as expected they were amazing. We’d seen them here with the symphony in 2007, but this time I was on the ball when tickets went on sale, so we were sitting in the second row. It was great! And we ran into our friends Richard and Dennis at intermission, which was one of those “small-town San Francisco” moments.

Here’s the song list, as printed in the program:

Quizás quizás quizás (Farrés)
Tempo Perdido (Alves)
Sympathique (Forbes / Lauderdale)
Ebben? No andro lontana (Catalani)
Uskudar (Traditional)
Adagio from Concerto in F (Gershwin)
Pièce en forme d’Habanera (Boléro) (Ravel / Leyden)
¿Dónde Estás, Yolanda? (Jimenez)
Malagueña (Lecuona)

Splendor in the Grass (Marashian / Lauderdale)
Andalucia (Lecuona)
Sway (Gimbel / Ruiz)
Autrefois (Forbes / Lauderdale)
Praeludium and Allegro (Kreisler / Taylor)
The Flying Squirrel (Taylor / Lauderdale)
Amado Mio (Fisher / Roberts)
Il fox trot delle gigolettes (Lehár)
Carioca (Youmans / Eliscu / Kahn)
Aspettami (Forbes / Lauderdale)

For the encores, they did “What’ll I Do?” (Berlin) and “Brazil” (Barroso), and we joined in the conga line that went around the hall, led by bandleader Thomas Lauderdale. Fun!

After the concert, Thom and I went to Absinthe for a late dinner, and who should we see at the table across from us but Cloris Leachman! Apparently she was in town for the Pride parade the next day, in which she was one of the grand marshalls. (Here is Thom’s dark and surreptitious photo from over his shoulder.) On our way out Thom said hello to her as we passed her table, which turned into a conversation about the food, and then her manager (whom we later found out is one of her sons, I think?) started asking us what the local buzz was, if any, surrounding Cloris and her participation in Pride, so suddenly we were the voice of the LGBT community, heh.

And as we left the restaurant, we ran into Thomas Lauderdale, who was on his way in. I guess it was the place to be after the show.

By the way, Pink Martini will be back in the Bay Area later this year (tour schedule): Santa Rosa on October 1, and Mountain Winery on October 2.

Independence Day 2009

Posted on July 5, 2009 by Jeff Tabaco

We had a fun Fourth of July yesterday: first we had a big lunch with my aunt’s family at their house in Concord, and it was Thom’s and my first time to meet their new dog, Odie. How cute is he?

In the evening all of us, minus Odie, went to nearby Martinez to watch the fireworks at the waterfront. Here’s a short video I took of the very end of the show; don’t mind my addition of some stock iMovie music (the clip is called “Vintage News,” as in old newsreels, but it also reminds me of Wallace & Gromit):

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Nightlife (and a blast from the past) at the Academy

Posted on July 3, 2009 by Jeff Tabaco

Last night Thom and I went to Nightlife, the California Academy of Science’s weekly Thursday night party, and it was a lot of fun. We sort of went on the spur of the moment and it was sold out online, but they were selling tickets at the door, and thanks to Thom’s membership, we didn’t have to wait long to get our tickets.

It was my second time to the new Academy, but my first time in the planetarium. That show (narrated by Sigourney Weaver), which takes you on a short trip through the universe, is pretty amazing. Stuff like that reminds you how vast space is and how small we are. After that we saw a special movie/performance piece called Bella Gaia, which focuses on the Earth, mixing satellite images and data visualizations with the words of International Space Station astronauts. The director was there to present the film; he is also a violinist, and he played violin during the movie as part of the score.

(South Park viewers will be pleased to know that I pronounce it planet arium. Thom and I always crack up at this clip, below. “And these two little stars over here form the constellation The Crusades.” Hahaha.)

Afterward, we wandered the museum and spent the rest of the evening at the aquarium exhibits. It’s a fun vibe at Nightlife. (And you save a lot over the regular daytime admission, which is always nice!)

And now a blast from the past. Here’s a photo of me with my paternal grandparents, taken in March 1980 when I was almost three years old, in front of the old Academy of Sciences building. The only things I remember about the old Academy are the circular fish tank and the giant Foucault pendulum. And did they have an earthquake simulator or was that at the Exploratorium?