This Is Beautiful: Teaching a Dance Class

 So instead of choreographing this semester I've started just teaching a general jazz/tap dance class that will focus more on technique than a specific dance. I've only taught it a couple times, but I'm having such a blast!

Usually when choreographing I'm thinking of something very specific that I want to create. This song, this style, these moves, that kind of thing. But now I'm really trying to make it as broad as possible, as many different songs and styles and influences as I can. It's really cool!

I guess I shouldn't be surprised, I've loved teaching choreography and this isn't that different. It is so much fun though!

Good Omens the tv show

 Alright that didn’t take very long. I watched the entire show basically over the course of a few days since there’s only 6 episodes. It is incredibly well done, since it is rather short they did have to cut some things but for the most part I do agree with their changes.

Probably the biggest change though is the additions that they made to flesh out Aziraphale and Crowley’s relationship. The show is SO MUCH GAYER than the book. They really make it clear that these two want to build a life together apart from Heaven and Hell. So the main additions consist of a segment showing the two of them interacting through the ages, and another at the end to show how they escape punishment after the events of the novel.

Other changes simply made it easier to understand what was happening. In the book, the Four Horsemen of the apocalypse are presented with very little context, and are only revealed to be who they are at the end. In the show, we are told who they are and what they are here for right away, no need to wonder about it. The show also makes it easier to understand Agnes Nutter’s prophecies by altering the language she uses. Which certainly makes it simple, but loses a bit of the fun in the process.

I thought the show was excellent, all of their changes stay true to the book but either elaborate on important points or make aspects easier to understand. The music is all terrific, and the casting is spot on. Honestly I wish that there was the possibility for more of this show. I think Pratchett would have loved watching it.

This Is Beautiful: Bernie Sanders

 In case you missed it, the iconic Bernie Sanders showed up to the inauguration and sat like this.

And people have been memeing the heck out of it, this one is by far my favorite:

It's just so wonderful because he's wearing the coat that's already been memed, the mittens look amazing, and in general he just looks like a grump. While everyone else at the inauguration looks like they dressed up and got all fancy, he's just being comfy. It is such a mood.

Anyways, these memes have been giving me life. I just love this man so much.

“Good Omens” by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

I finally got around to reading this book after meaning to for years. The edition that I got my hands on was published after Pratchett died in 2015 but before it was turned into a tv show. It’s really well done, there’s an intro by Gaiman and sections at the end with Gaiman on Pratchett and Pratchett on Gaiman. It is interesting that reading this material somehow necessitates knowing who the authors are. They both wrote this before they became truly famous for their work. It was just two friends working together for the love of it.

Honestly I really liked this book. I am frequently frustrated with Gaiman’s works because he cannot write a decent female character to save his life. But there are a couple decent ones in Good Omens including Pepper, an eleven-year-old tomboy, and Anathema, a witchy psychic. There’s also War, one of the Four Horseman of the apocalypse who’s female. And they all are decent characters, really well fleshed out and not treated as plot devices.

I also quite enjoy that it is canonically confirmed that Crawley and Aziraphale are agender and asexual! Not in those words, but they are called “sexless” and that they don’t find people attractive. Which is rad. I kinda wish that in the show they would cast someone as a woman or something like that to embrace it instead of casting them as men.

Back to the text, I thought it was a very cool interpretation of the Bible and Armageddon. Really in line with American Gods which Gaiman would write later. Everything takes place in roughly the present day, so several things are updated and made contemporary. It is also just so funny and amusing to read! I suspect that this is mostly Pratchett who was known for his humor in his writing.

Anyways so I am on to the tv show next, and we shall see what I think of that after I finish it.

This Is Beautiful: Greek Tragedy

 So my favorite band of all time is The Wombats, and recently a new remix of their song, "Greek Tragedy," blew up on TikTok. The band being the band, they put the remix up everywhere so that anyone can access it! The link is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtAQfFWYrig

The music video is incredible, it's basically some animated wombats going around trying to cancel the band because they aren't real wombats! Very cute, very funny. I'm just so happy that the band is popping up again, I need them to make new music! As cool as this remix is, it wouldn't be as cool as a brand new song.

“The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design” by Roman Mars and Kurt Kohlstedt

I am a big fan of the podcast 99% Invisible so when they announced a little while ago that they would be writing a book, I was very excited and preordered it right away. The book finally finished up over the summer and it has taken me a while to go through it, but I ended up loving how you can read and absorb it over time. The book consists of short articles about different aspects of city design, along with really cute hand drawn illustrations of the infrastructure they discuss. You can read it cover to cover, which I did, or you can treat it like a reference book and read individual sections at a time. Either way, you are almost guaranteed to learn something new.

During the lead up to the publication something that Mars mentioned was that this book turned into the book of the moment with the pandemic and lockdown restrictions. Instead of exploring far away places, readers could now explore the design within the architecture surrounding them and learn something new about the city that they reside in. Which is pretty cool, as fans of the podcast already know.

I really enjoyed going through this book. A lot of the chapters were taken from the podcast, but since they had to be recast into a new form, the story has changed somewhat. And there were plenty of new stories that are new entirely! One of my favorites is about sidewalk graffiti and how construction workers mark the location of different underground lines on the concrete to know where to dig. Because how many of us have seen those mark and wondered about them?

So if you are into architecture and design, or just like me and enjoy picking up bits of random knowledge, this is definitely a book to have around. It explains things around you that you have noticed and wondered about, as well as the things around you that you never noticed and now can’t stop seeing.

This Is Beautiful: Snow

 I spent the holidays in a warm location, which was nice for a change, but coming back to the snow in Michigan was really lovely too. It just makes the ground look so pretty, with this blanket of white over everything.

Unfortunately it isn't really enough to play around in or to go sledding, but it is gorgeous to look at. I am just a little stunned every time I look out the window how beautiful it is out there. It's really so pretty. I could never live somewhere without snow, haha.