I went to the antiques mall today, and as it'll probably be a while until I get to go again so I figured it was a perfect excuse to take some photos.
I love all of the Black Forest bear carvings. This one's an ashtray and you put matches in the bear's backpack, but you could easily repurpose it for sewing notions or the like. Look at that face, he just wants to guard your stuff!
I traveled to London yesterday, and I am so absolutely beyond exhausted. According to my Apple Watch I walked just over 25,000 steps, and I was awake for a total of 27 hours (after an insomnia driven night of 2.5 hours sleep 💀) It was intense! And now everything hurts!
I started out at the V&A as there's currently a free exhibition on called Re:imagining Musicals which I was curious about. It's about 50% new stuff and 50% things that they usually display in the 'Theatre And Performance' section that was jiggled around and repurposed. The way they've moved everything around makes it much more interesting to look at so I hope they keep it like this from now on and it's not temporary.
The exhibition starts with a display dedicated to the world of Oz and it's many adaptations, including Wicked, which I obviously found really exciting. They had Elphaba's dress on display too, but as it was right at the beginning everyone was kind of bottlenecked into a small area which made it difficult to see on such a busy day. I wasn't bothered as they have Elphaba's dress on display at the Victoria Apollo too, and it's actually better as it isn't obscured by glass and you can even touch it if you want to. I was more excited by the 3rd edition of The Wizard of Oz sitting right there! What I wouldn't give for an early edition of that book.
Satine!! Now this is new. I have mixed feelings on Moulin Rouge! The Musical, but I felt quite emotional seeing this as it reminded me of seeing Karen Olivo descending from the top of the Al Hirschfeld stage wearing it. And the details are just gorgeous! That bead work!!
The set design was one of the best things about & Juliet (second only to the costumes!) so I loved getting to see scale models of the artwork behind it all.
I've developed mixed feelings about Frozen The Musical too, especially since the Frozen II additions. I've seen it on Broadway and a couple of times in London and ultimately decided that it's good and I love some of the additional songs, but it misses a lot of what I love so much about the movie. But I still loved getting to see Olaf! This is the version of him Elsa and Anna build out of toys when they're kids.
There was a lot more that I didn't photograph just as it's based on shows I'm personally less interested in so don't think it's restricted to just this. It's a pretty expansive exhibit and I'd recommend it!
I had hoped to also visit the Beatrix Potter exhibition at the V&A but their online ticketing service was down and I wasn't bothered enough to queue, so I decided to walk up to Oxford Street which ended up being A Mistake. Like, just get the Tube, why am I like this? I generally prefer to walk as London isn't that big and you can see so much more that you'd otherwise miss, but this was pretty far with nothing to look at and I don't recommend it. And because of all the walking I didn't really have a whole lot of time to do much else beyond grab some food and a lot of coffee. I did stop by the Disney Store as I'd saved up to get a Mickey Mouse jacket I'd seen just a couple of weeks ago when I saw Hamilton, but they didn't have it anymore :( Crushed.
Seeing Wicked was as special as always, although it seemed to be a bit of an off day for some of the cast and everyone around me was talking about it during intermission. Glinda was absolutely perfect, I remember not feeling too confident about Helen Woolf the first time I saw her (all the way pre-Covid, OMG!) but her Glinda has really grown on me and her performances are a real highlight. Mark Curry has taken over as the Wizard, and I really loved how natural he managed to make the role. To be honest the Wizard is a character I'm usually underwhelmed by, I think because he's choreographed so theatrically that it often just seems too over the top and corny but Mark made it work. And even though some of the performances were so-so I’m still thrilled to have seen it as there’s no such thing as a bad Wicked performance. It's truly my happy place and I just spend each and every show trying to soak in as many details as possible.
They had some new merch! I don't usually collect the Wicked snow globes, they're really collectible among fans but I've always thought the quality of the molding is kind of janky for how much they cost, but I just had to get this one. It's not often they take much notice of Fiyero, and I love his romance with Elphaba so much since reading the book. I even feel like they tried to deepen Fiyero's skintone a little too which made me happy and is good to see! You can see the back here too. Honestly the quality is kind of disappointing, I've bought more detailed snow globes from Disneyland Paris for half the cost, but I'm happy with the representation and how it'll look on my collection shelf. A good buy regardless!
I also got a necklace (the usher asked if I visited a lot as I bought both the brand new things and I felt so called out 💀), and I totally did not go to London for a bag but I bought one anyway and I adore it. I was walking past TK Maxx, not even going in, and saw it through the window and did a double take. My orange Kånken is getting really beat up looking and I've felt for a while it's probably time to retire it. This couldn't be more perfect!
Autumn is truly my favorite time of year, and my most cherished thing to do is just simply walk around and see the trees change. It happens so quickly and I like to be able to capture it. It's like witnessing real magic.
So I finally got round to seeing Hamilton on Monday. I've listened to the OBC before and never really vibed with it, to be honest hip hop isn't really my thing which probably isn't a surprise to anyone. And so I kind of guessed that the show wouldn't really be my cup of tea either which is why it's taken me until now to get round to it (plus it's one of the most expensive shows on the West End!). But I still wanted to go and actually see it with my own two eyes at some point to give it a fair shot as listening to a cast recording is obviously no where near the same as getting the full context of a show. And yes I know there's the pro-shot on Disney+, but to be honest I don't really like watching recordings of theater. Watching something on that scale through my 15" laptop screen isn't really giving it a fair shot either, especially with my ADHD brain making me want to skip ahead. I need to be a captive audience member. If I can't see something in person, then I'd rather just not bother.
The Victoria Palace Theatre that currently houses Hamilton is right by Wicked, and it felt every shade of wrong having to walk straight past it.
I can't say I had a bad time and it was enjoyable enough, but as I guessed from the beginning it wasn't really my cup of tea and seeing it in action didn't really change that for me. I can appreciate that it's a good musical in that it's well paced, well characterized, it hit every emotional beat that it needed to, had some good melodies, and I personally adored the costumes, I think that was hands down my favorite part and I was marveling at the details every time they changed. I always felt the costumes didn't look particularly impressive in the photographs, but boy was I wrong! So I'm glad I got to see it. It felt weird calling myself a musical theater fan without having this on my seen list, so I’m happy to have crossed it off if nothing else. But it also didn’t change my mind on thinking Lin-Manuel Miranda is over hyped XD
I admit I’m far from the most knowledgeable about US history being European and all, but it has always struck me as a weird story to simplify into a Broadway show. I feel like I want to give it some grace as while I want to rag on the historical accuracy, it also drives me crazy when people do that with Anastasia because it's not supposed to be historically accurate and never once presents itself as that. I also do genuinely hate when people won't let anyone enjoy anything and use it as some kind of superiority complex, like no one is allowed to like flawed things and just accept that absolutely nothing is perfect. And I'm 100% sure I do not have any fresh takes here, but I just had the overall sense when watching it that I'm not sure colorblind casting the Founding Fathers is as woke as it thinks it's being, and it felt weird to me to see African American culture painted over these racist historical figures. I get Miranda wanted to modernize the story and make it relevant for audiences, but implying everyone in the US is an immigrant and shares the same struggle when at the beginning many were colonizers and those who weren't were either forced there through slavery, or Indigenous and being slaughtered, feels insensitive at best. There’s casual mentions here and there of the slavery that was going on behind the scenes, but it just felt a bit tone deaf and uncomfy and I guess I worry about how it's reframing history. Especially to foreign audiences who may not know any better.
I didn't get to do much else in London as I wasn't feeling great (it turned into full blown sinusitis by the next day and I had to get antibiotics, fun) but I did go back to Urban Outfitters for the vintage jacket I'd seen the previous week when I saw Wicked. I think it's a High School cheerleading jacket? It's not anything I have any knowledge of, I'm not even sure why I'm so taken with it, but I'd tried it on before and couldn't get it out of my head and was so happy to see it was still there.
I like that it has the original badges of when Krista competed in 1988 and 1990, plus a picture of I assume Krista herself. I think that's why I'm so charmed by it because this really isn't anything I've ever been drawn to before, but I can really see it has a history and I absolutely love that. I Googled 'Piner' and it appears to be a school in Santa Rosa, California. I bet Krista would find it absolutely wild that her old school jacket ended up in the vintage section of an Urban Outfitters on the opposite side of the globe.
I also ended up getting the blu ray of Elvis which is now the only movie I physically own. I used to have a pretty huge DVD collection, but probably like many gave it up for streaming (and pirating) which feels so much easier. But the past couple of years I've been getting increasingly fed up with just picking everything off of a digital list as nothing is tangible anymore. I started by buying my Switch games as cartridges instead of downloads, the odd physical book, and a couple of months ago I started buying vinyl again. More recently with all of the talk about how some movies and TV shows are being silently removed from streaming platforms like some kind of censorship got me thinking about how I really ought to start collecting my favorite movies too. As I'm starting from scratch I figured I'd go with blu ray this time as the resolution is better and they usually have more special features. Which is honestly another thing I miss from before, when we'd get DVDs with entire extra discs of making of documentaries and behind the scenes.
I went to see Wicked yesterday, mostly as I hadn't seen it in a while and it felt like the most convenient day for me to travel, but it ended up being the 16th anniversary show! I literally had no idea, and it's a weird coincidence as I accidentally caught the 35th anniversary of Phantom of the Opera last year too. It's like I have a sixth sense for these things, but no actual awareness.
It wasn't really a whole lot different from a regular show, I didn't even realize right up until the end when they gave a speech after the bows and dropped some confetti and balloons. It felt good to be back though, seeing this show always feels like coming home. Which is a phrase that feels so trite, but I don't know how else to describe it, I just feel the most 'me' when I'm there. Sharing my interests is something that I've always struggled with as it's not something people were ever kind to me about so I've felt like I had to hide my special interests so people wouldn't make fun of me, and it's still something I find difficult to open up about. It's funny because the more I talk about something then the less it probably actually means to me, which then skews people's perceptions of me which I get frustrated about. I'm working on it! But this show is so very important to me, and every time I see it is so special.
I traveled to London on Thursday, but I've had some mysterious nausea bug ever since so I didn't feel like writing about it until now. I mostly went to see &Juliet, and I also stopped by the Jack The Ripper museum which I'll put behind a cut at the bottom because, you know, murder.
I didn't know a whole lot about &Juliet before going other than that it was some kind of riff off of Romeo & Juliet and it's had some polarizing reviews. It's a jukebox musical that literally opens with a Backstreet Boys song though, so it's really not anything to be taken that seriously. And I had a lot of fun seeing it! It's just the right amount of silly and very lighthearted, and to be honest I felt like it was the jukebox musical that Moulin Rouge wishes it could be and failed (the musical, not the movie). The score and book worked together really seamlessly, and the music always matched the tone of what was happening on stage. I guess I can understand not liking it if you're a Shakespeare purist, but it's not supposed to be that deep and there's enough straight Shakespeare adaptations out there already. Romeo's introduction to Jon Bon Jovi's It's My Life absolutely killed me, and I really loved the sets and costume design. The costumes were a blend of Elizabethan and modern street wear which sounds like it could be a hot mess but worked really well. I would absolutely go see it again!
Otherwise I mostly did a whole lot of nothing and enjoyed every single second of it. I ended up doing about 20,000 steps and I'm not even sure how? I just had a really chill time looking through my favorite clothing stores and trying on a bunch of stuff I had no intention of buying, browsing the art and book stores, and just really taking my time with it. It was really nice not to be in a rush or have anywhere to go and just enjoy the city.
I actually did something that felt entirely different in London yesterday and went to see The Mousetrap. I say 'entirely different' because this very much feels like a 'proper' play to me compared to a musical, but I suppose if you're not much of a theater goer then it's all much of a muchness to you. It's the longest running show in London and I've often passed by it near Covent Garden and been curious so I decided to just go for it. It's also my very first interaction with literally anything to do with Agatha Christie as I'm always a bit prejudiced against her work as I associate it so strongly with grandmas in a twee and old fashioned kind of way, but I do love a good crime thriller so I was prepared to be wrong.
Unfortunately I was not wrong and I won't be buying any of her books any time soon, but I still enjoyed it! I didn't look at anything to do with the plot in advance as I really wanted to try and avoid spoilers, I didn't even read the program just in case. So I won't spoil it for you, but just to say that I saw half of the ending coming but not all of it. It does feel like a very old fashioned play to me which I'm not personally a fan of (and why I'm not even interested in old musicals or even revivals of old musicals) There's nothing offensive about it, but for example the humor just doesn't land for me (I'm not into the 'farce' style), the script felt a bit stilted at times, and the plot just relied too heavily on coincidences that just don't feel in any way believable and all of these things stopped me from being able to fully engage with it. But your mileage may vary, and it was certainly one of the most varied audiences I've ever seen in a theater which can only be a good thing.
Of course being in London I had to make use of having so many shops accessible, and of course being me I spent most of it in the book store. I've been spending more time in BookTok/BookTube/Book Reddit lately which has left me with a bit of bookshelf envy. I read a lot, but most of my books are either digital or thrifted and my shelves are a messy hodge-podge as a result. I don't care about most of it, books are made to be read after all, but I've always really admired these recent Hodder editions of Stephen King's works. Stephen King usually has super ugly books so I've never felt bad about having almost his entire bibliography digital only. But then I saw these! Admittedly the two I've bought so far aren't the best examples of this amazing cover art, but look at Misery, 1922, The Body, or The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon and tell me these aren't well designed covers. And as an illustrator I love that stuff, and as Stephen King is my favorite author I decided that this is the 'aesthetic' book collection I have to have. I'm really excited to build this! Books are really important to me but not something I've ever allowed myself to spend much on, so this really is something that feels like the ultimate treat. All of the spines are a different solid color too, so when I eventually have the full collection it'll form a rainbow on my shelf.
These were the only two books I could find in this binding (there are so many different editions in the UK it's kind of exhausting) and whilst they're not my favorite designs I'm pretty happy with them being the start of my collection - Four Past Midnight which is a collection of novellas which includes The Langoliers was the first book by King I ever read and The Langoliers was my favorite of that collection and arguably what got me started reading him in the first place. So really I couldn't ask for a better place to start my physical book collection.
Since I've been getting into Elvis I've really been itching to go digging through the antiques stores. Unfortunately I live in Europe so there's not much to be found like I'd imagine there is in the US, but it never hurts to look anyway, and really I love any excuse to go antiquing. It's fun to look around and fantasize about what my future forever home might look like.
Bears like this always break my heart a little bit. Someone clearly loved him very fiercely once, and judging from how worn he is probably carried him everywhere for comfort. And now he's locked in a cabinet and will probably never have the chance to be loved like that ever again :(
I love weird oddities. A pig playing a violin, why not.
The one single Elvis thing I found. It's a clock and his legs swing from side to side for the seconds. I did not buy it.
I can never resist a frog.
The things I did buy. The dress is genuine 1950s and was cheap because it has a hole in it, but I think I can fix it up and it'll make a nice summer dress. Also some Donovan and Elvis records, and a tiny little porcelain Alice.
