#cpsaart

This past weekend my mother took me to the Renaissance Fair and we all saw all sorts of great and interesting things there! For one thing, we sat and watched a couple of different Celtic bands play their bagpipes, lute, and a drum. I loved their tunes and my mother confided with me that she wanted to learn violin specifically to play Celtic music. I also got to look around at a bunch of different artist works including glass-work. It was a lot of fun!

I went to NextNow with a bunch of my friends and we got to see Maryland Night Live! I had no idea that MNL was based off of SNL, just that it was a comedy show, so I was pleasantly surprised when I recognized familiar bits like Weekend Update and digital shorts. My favorite segments were Tyler Tyler and the noir scene involving the bar scene. I wanted to stay for the silent disc-glo, but ended up going to bed soon after. I hope to see it happen again next time!

Instead of coming back to school on a Saturday, like I expected to originally, I instead went on a whimsical trip up to Philadelphia with my sister and her friends since they had a spare ticket. We went to see the Percy Jackson musical, which was based off of the books. The musical did the books justice where the movies did not. The cast was amazing and they often played multiple characters. My favorite song was the dazzling DOA, which took place in Hell. It was filled with references to the book, Greek mythology, and pop culture all to a sick beat. Fantastic.

I went up to New York to see my family. We went to the Met, ate take out, and did an escape room (and won.) The Met was full of some really cool stuff. There was an armory, an exhibit on old Renaissance art, and artifacts from various cultures (Polynesian and Mexican to name a few.) My favorite exhibits were the modern and post-modern artworks because they were more familiar to me. After taking my art theory class last semester, I was better equipped to identify and understand Matisse and Dali artwork. I could understand the reasoning behind impressionism and cubist designs. Plus, the Egyptian room was really cool.

It was the spookiest night of them all! My friend Teddy was performing at the Clarice with the band (including Jackson and Rachel,) dressed as a googly-eyed green monster. The music was theme appropriate and I loved it. My favorite was Baba Yaga. While I listened, stories unfolded in my eye. There was one about a rabbit being chased by a crowd of wolves, only to be saved by a little girl, and living happily with her. Then the girl transformed into a goddess in my mind and she searched and found love with another, the story ending with a castle rising up from the ground and the world holy and bright. I know the story doesn’t quite make sense, but I love listening to music by a live band in order to imagine whole story-lines. It’s a beautiful phenomenon. 

I had never seen The Shining before! I was both completely spooked and laughing hysterically. I can see where the roots for the horror movie genre come from, but decades after the movie’s release, there is little to be truly surprised by. Without the music, the movie wouldn’t be nearly as terrifying as it was. That being said, the visual elements were phenomenal. I particularly loved the repetition and the image of the blood spilling into the one hallway. Maybe I’d be less terrified of horror films if I saw them with friends!

The Coffeehouse was a fantastic way to see everyone else’s talents. I was so happy to perform (I haven’t been able to since my Senior Coffeehouse.) I read two poems and a very short story, all spooky based. The short story was about a murder, one of the poems was about skeletons, and the other poem was about the earth. I can’t wait to perform again!