Out on the Town and other stories

We have been getting these incredible storms at least twice a day. The sun will be shining and suddenly it is dark as night and the winds pick up. Then the thunder starts rolling (poor Bertha) and it clashes non stop for about 30 minutes. At some point the skies open and the rain poors down, like it has never rained before. This goes on for 30-60 minutes then is suddenly gone and the sun shines again. We are used to a lot of rain in the spring and summer, but this is different. These storms remind me of the tropics. In a way they are refreshing, they usually bring cooler weather but they also make it so the humidity stays at about 85 %, whew. We all know what that does to the frizz factor! It looks like one may be coming in now as the winds have picked up and the sky is getting darker. I wonder what all this crazy weather means. I know a lot of people blame it on global warming but I have a hard time believing that is the only cause.
(The image above is of the Christian Science building in down town Boston. This is just after a rain storm with the sun going down. Behind the building there is this huge "park" with mirror pools and huge fountains. There is also fountains that come right out of the ground and form water tunnels you can walk/run through. Nice in the summer time!)

I promised some pictures of us out on the town last week, a rare occurrence, I admit. Each summer, the Boston Pops do this event called Edge Fest. They get popular rock and pop stars to come in and do 2 nights of shows with them. They are trying to reach out to new audiences. They had Tori Amos recently as well as Ben Folds. Well last week they had this girl named Amanda Palmer who is one half of a local band called "The Dresden Dolls". They model themselves after the cabaret performers in the 30's and 40's in Germany. They wear make up and dress the part. They are also very talented. A few years ago they did a play called "The Onion Cellar" based on a book of stories that take place in early 20th century Germany. She wrote most of it and it centered around their original songs. I took Doug for Christmas and we became fans. I love unique talent, and they certainly have that.


Amanda is about to come out with her first solo album, featuring a lot of her on the piano. When we heard she was playing with the Pops, we knew it would be something special. She doesn't do anything small, she is too big of a presence. Her fans really came out for this. I think the conductor was a little shocked. Outside the theater there were these living statues.

She loves performance art and for years made money being the "bride" as a living statue in Harvard square. For those of you who don't know, they dress up and paint themselves to look like a statue. They stay completely still until you drop some money into the cup then they do a little mime act or something like that. I think she gave people flowers being the bride and all.

Most of her fans dressed up, dress up style. Big thrifted dresses, heavy make up, slips and fish nets etc. I just wore dress pants.

The theater is beautiful. We were on the second balcony but had a perfect view. Around the whole top of the room they had these white statues. I like the image of this statue I captured, she looks like mother Mary.

The first half of the show was just the Pops playing selections from The Planets, which was nice.

But it really started when Amanda came out. She really engaged the orchestra, did some traditional show tunes, in a not so traditional way, did some new stuff, had actors in some songs, a choir in another and even burlesque dancers. Her regular band is more artsy punk rock but this really engaged a wider audience. Even those who had never heard of her would have really enjoyed themselves. I am so glad we went. The Boston Globe has a great little video of her opening song from the first night. It gives you a good taste of the show.

The following pictures are taken by Chris Devers and are in his Flickr. I wasn't close enough to get these shots.


Since the last three times I have been out to a show in the last few years, was to see Amanda and the Dresden Dolls, I thought I would share a bit of our evening. I hope you enjoyed it.