Sunday in the Park with Jack

Okay, it's all Stephen Sondheim's fault. I've been playing the Broadway cast album of "Sunday..." today - I bought it years ago via Amazon because Brent Spiner (Data, "Star Trek: The Next Generation") was in it - but I'd only ever played it the once before.

I'm really enjoying it; the song "Lesson #8" brought tears to my eyes, hearing it again. I love finally getting to understand all of the words in a musical by playing catch-up with the soundtrack album after the big event.

I found this pic of Jack - who's currently really, really keen on going to the park - except it's raining. So here's a virtual park for ya, little matey. Sorry about the inclement weather. Who'd have thought it after the heat of yesterday?

Sunday on Saturday

Today, after voting (Labor was returned to power, by the way), I went to see the local production of the musical, "Sunday in the Park with George" at the Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre (scene of my recent stage escapade), and I found "Sunday..." to be very moving. Sometimes, a musical comes along at just the right moment in one's life and, only this morning, I'd been contemplating some themes that were brought into perspective by the messages in today's performance.

A few weeks ago, one of my new Star Trek friends (discovered via the online Meetup group) happened to ask if his father was welcome to attend the next meeting. Well, of course he could. But the topic was mulled over in my head, until... I emailed him back today, saying, "I just realised, of course, that your Dad is probably about my age. I feel so old! ;-)

Ben wrote back, "He's just turned 40. Does this make you feel any better/worse?"

I'm 48. Gosh, I dunno how I feel? It's really weird. I relate to Ben - and AdamJ, for that matter - as equals, because we are all science fiction media fans. However, Ben's Dad is not only younger than me, he's also younger that both of my younger brothers.

Actually, I'm looking forward to meeting Ben's Dad; every now and then (but not often) I regret not ever having kids. To think, by now, in some alternate universe, I have a whole household of some really cool 20-Something kids who like SF. So bizarre. And very, very kewl (to coin a phrase). Actually, AdamJ, who's already taken to calling me "Dad", tells me that his parents are visiting Australia this year, from the UK. (Cheeky young whippersnappers!)

Anyway, all this "woe is my future" stuff was reflected, quite unexpectedly, by the plot of the second half of "Sunday in the Park with George". The action jumps from the 1880s to the modern day. One of the characters, a wheelchair-bound character in her 90s, had been a tiny babe-in-arms in the famous painting being celebrated ("A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grand Jatte" by Georges Seurat). The important thing, she explains to an art gallery first-night audience, is to leave a legacy after one has died: and that can be children and/or art.



I guess, since I'm not producing any children of my own (not counting, I guess, the 380 young students I teach every week), I'm really going to have to get my act together, and finish preparing something from the arts to be my legacy!

The other scary thing is: we have Grandparents' Day coming up again at school, just before Easter. We teachers realised a few years ago that most of the grandparents who attend are actually younger than most of us. Sigh.

Saturday in the Polling Booth, without a Clue

New South Wales goes to the polls tomorrow to elect a new state government. After helping to vote in some very unwise choices over the years - and then having to live with the resulting changes to education (Terry Metherill, remember him?), etc. - I gleefully voted Australian Democrats for several elections, so at least I knew I'd voted to "Keep the Bastards Honest".

But then, I began to notice that the Democrats couldn't even get enough volunteers to hand out their How to Vote cards at each polling booth. (I almost volunteered myself!) A few elections later, they shot themselves in the foot, then in the head.

Dunno what I'm going to do tomorrow...

After voting, I'm off to see a local production of the musical, "Sunday in the Park with George". Except I'm seeing it on a Saturday. With CH and Jonas.