Still haven’t found what they’re looking for


It seems that it is a rule of blogging to use a post here and there to ponder the many and varied reasons that people choose to visit the blog in question, and it also seems that (having apparently passed 2000 ‘hits’) it is time for the Singing Librarian to ponder this.  Of course, the majority of the people that leave comments here are people that I know from elsewhere, either in that dodgy thing we sometimes call ‘real life’ or from another site, generally h2g2.  However, I know there are others who pass through, either regularly or for a one-off visit, and it’s always intriguing to see what search engine terms have brought the new visitors here.  And most of them will have been rather disappointed, I fear. Continue reading →

2006
08/17
CATEGORY
Meta - about this blog
Ramblings
TAGS



5 comments

52’s first suit


I’m a week behind with the wonderful world of 52, the weekly ‘real-time’ comic I enthused about some time ago.  The rest of the community of crazy comics fans camped outside their local shops last week and picked up Week 14, but the last issue I read was Week 13, meaning that I am exactly one quarter of the way through the series, and at an appropriate point to pause and reflect.  The creative team involved with the series have mentioned that the title has some meaning other than the number of weeks in a year, and the first thing that springs to mind for many people is a deck of cards.  Now, there’s been no sign of the poker-themed villains the Royal Flush Gang thus far, but I did wonder whether one could divide the series into four suits, and if so, which suit the first 13 issues represent.

For me, I think it’s hearts, as quite a number of hearts are broken, in one way or another, in this first ‘suit’.  Continue reading →

2006
08/15
CATEGORY
Books & Comics
TAGS





3 comments

Now we are in-laws


My sister got married at the weekend.  However, other than saying that yes, she looked stunning, yes, it was a fantastic occasion and no, it didn’t rain, I’m not writing this post about the even itself.  It is about a new facet of my identity which perplexes me somewhat.

What is the role of the brother-in-law?

The role of the mother-in-law is very well defined, and the father-in-law almost as much.  But what about the sibling of the newly married man or woman?  We get to add -in-law to our list of titles, which is a privilege denied to uncles, aunts, cousins and so on, but why bother?  If the two of them ever decide to start a family (which is, sadly, fairly unlikely, but I will not apply pressure), then uncledom would be the state entered into, and the role of the uncle is quite clear.  The role of the uncle is to lead the little darlings slightly astray by being crazier than the parents, and also to introduce the wee ones to activities they might otherwise miss as their parents have no particular fondness for a particular sport, craft, genre of film or national cuisine.

But what of the brother-in-law?  I suppose if a sister’s husband started being unpleasant to her, a brother-in-law might step in and say ‘oi!’  But as my sister is more capable of looking out for herself than I am of looking out for her, this doesn’t apply in our case.  And her husband is a very nice, gentle man (as well as a gentleman, I suppose) and I’d be shocked if the issue ever arose.  The only other thing I can think of is that the brother- or sister-in-law is the in-law who you don’t have to put on any airs for, who you don’t have to try to impress.  The in-law who you feel comfortable with and who won’t over-criticise the standard of your cleaning, cooking or DIY.  The good cop to the mother-in-law bad cop.  Hopefully, given time, the friend.

2006
08/14
CATEGORY
Ramblings
TAGS


6 comments

Messing around


In my post a few days ago about my experiences as a cast member of Die Fledermaus (goodness me, that sounds pretentious!), I mentioned the silliness which we got up to behind the scenes during Act One.  Silliness is often an important, or at least prominent, part of the rehearsal and performance process, but I don’t want to give the wrong impression on this.  There are definitely limits, and when it comes to these limits, I am a bit of an ogre.

Under no circumstances should you do anything to jeopardise any aspect of the show.

Never ever.  Not even a little bit.  Backstage pranks are good.  Enjoying yourself on stage is good.  You do need to do something to pass the time when you’re not on stage.  But this should never affect your performance or the performance of anyone else.  The audience has paid good money to see the show, and (unless it’s a pantomime), they don’t want to see people trying to make each other laugh, or inappropriate comedy props appearing on the stage.  ‘In jokes’ mean nothing to the paying punters and often aren’t even funny to those in the know.

Let me give you an example.  A real one.  Continue reading →

2006
08/08
CATEGORY
Theatre
TAGS



5 comments

Boundaries of ignorance


The further you progress in the education system, the more you realise that there’s an awful lot you don’t know.  My MA in English Literature means I know a bit about the field in general, quite a lot about eighteenth-century novels and far too much about Henry Fielding.  But it also makes me realise how much there is about even my chosen fields that I don’t know.  Higher degrees mean learning more and more about less and less, but would I really want to study dozens of GCSE or A Level subjects and be frustrated, knowing that I had now scratched the surface of an awful lot of things?

A post elsewhere on WordPress really challenged me to think again about how little I know.  Continue reading →

2006
08/07
CATEGORY
Christianity
Education
Library
Ramblings
TAGS



13 comments

More summer singing


Tonight I sang at another summer concert, with many of the same people as last time, and with a similar selection of music.  This one was to raise money for one of those wonderful small village churches that pepper the English countryside, and I can vouch that it’s worth saving, as the church was our concert venue.  The audience was a few dozen local people, filling the pews.  I’m not sure whether it was the acoustics of the building or our collective frame of mind, but we sang better than we ever have before.  Continue reading →

2006
08/05
CATEGORY
Singing
TAGS
1 comment

It must be summer…


Things can get rather silly in the Library of Doom.  It’s probably a reflex action that helps us cope, making us laugh instead of scream.  The silliness tends to be most obvious over the summer, as there are very few students in (so you can get away with more) and other than stock management, there’s not all that much to do.

So it really shouldn’t have been a surprise when I bounded out enthusiastically for a session on the issue desk (one hour, serving approximately ten students) and was handed an origami boat.  Continue reading →

2006
08/04
CATEGORY
Library
TAGS

6 comments

Singing Librarian flashback: Die Fledermaus


I recently added a page to the blog on my on stage exploits, and thought I’d use occasional posts to peel back the curtains and give you a peek at backstage life as I’ve experienced it during some of these productions.   Sometimes the things the audience doesn’t see can be just as interesting as the things they do see.  So let’s begin…

Summer 2002.  The Gulbenkian Theatre.  Die Fledermaus, with a cast consisting of a mixture of professionals and local singers.  I won’t explain the plot, as it would take far too long to go into the multitudinous twists and turns, but it’s a silly tale of multiple mistaken identities, most of them deliberate.  We set it in the swinging sixties in New York City, which meant that the pivotal party had guests ranging from Andy Warhol to a guitar-toting hippie (me).  I present to you three scenes from the University of Kent Summer Opera production of Die Fledermaus. Continue reading →

2006
08/03
CATEGORY
Opera
Operetta
Singing Librarian flashback
Theatre
TAGS



3 comments

Born to play the role?


I’m very lucky.  In my theatrical ‘career’ so far, I have played four principal roles and two of them were so brilliantly suited to my abilities that it was almost unbelievable.  Herr Schultz in Cabaret was admittedly some fifty years older than me when I played him, but it was in a school production, so questions of age were irrelevant.  However, his mixture of quiet joy and pathos, combined with his characterful songs, made him a perfect match for me.  Gerald in Me and My Girl was just ridiculously right, as well.  Everything from the ridiculous accent and the old-fashioned singing style through to his complete ignorance of his own ludicrosity was so ‘me’.  I slipped into the role like a glove.  Not that it wasn’t hard work, it most certainly was, but it was all so right.

The trouble is, there aren’t many perfect roles for each performer, and I’ve already used two up before the age of 30.  And if I really was born to play Gerald Bolingbroke, as some people said, does that mean I’ve peaked, and it’s all downhill from here?  I certainly hope not.  But the idea does make me think – what roles would I like to play, and what roles am I ideally suited for?  Continue reading →

2006
07/30
CATEGORY
Musicals
Ramblings
Singing
TAGS

4 comments

Billy (the musical)


My latest visit to a local theatre was to see the musical Billy at the Whitstable Playhouse, a theatre I’d never attended before.  The production was by the Lindley Players, and starred the guy who played Bill Snibson in Me and My Girl when I was in the show in March.  He is a performer I admire very much, and also a person that I like, and so I welcomed the opportunity to see him in a show from the auditorium rather than from the wings with no glasses on. Continue reading →

2006
07/27
CATEGORY
Musicals
Theatre
TAGS





8 comments
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