| Sunday, November 26, 2006 |
| Harry Christmas |
After my usual I-hate-Christmas rantings, you would expect me to be the last person in the world to buy tickets to a Christmas carol sing-a-long, right? And yet, that's exactly what I did. As long as you're not hearing them in a mall, there's nothing really wrong with Christmas carols.
Friday and Saturday, Harry Shearer and his wife, singer/songwriter Judith Owen, held an Xmas event at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco. Because I'm a fan of both -- I've previously written in this space that Judith's Christmas song "The Dancing Tree" is one of my all-time favorites in any genre, and I listen to Harry's "Le Show" every Sunday on KALW-FM -- I figured I had to go. Plus, it was a fund-raiser for a good cause. So on Friday night, we trekked into the city, and for the second time in a row, I found a killer free parking space (non-handicapped this time, but I was able to drop Joe off at the theater first, so it was OK). Despite my general grinchitude, I have to say I had a great time. Harry and Judith performed several songs, including (yay!) "The Dancing Tree," and they introduced a few special guests: Jill Sobule, Julia Fordham, and a cappella group The Bobs. Among the highlights: The Bobs did an astonishing version of Cream's "White Room," which they said was easier to learn than "White Christmas," and Jill Sobule performed her holiday classic "Jesus Was a Dreidel Spinner." After an hour of listening to the professionals play music, Judith led the audience in a raucous holiday sing-a-long, including a "Twelve Days of Christmas" in which she somehow managed to split the audience into 12 segments and coerced us into doing all sorts of crazy things. I was in the "two calling birds" group, so we all flapped our "wings" when we sang our part. Luckily, considering Joe's relative immobility, we didn't have to act out "lords a-leaping."
On Saturday, we went to see "For Your Consideration," which stars Harry as a washed-up actor who's been making a living acting in TV commercials (most famously, one in which he's required to wear a wiener costume). When he is cast in an indie film called "Home For Purim," he and co-star Catherine O'Hara become the target of Oscar buzz, and they begin to hope their fortunes have changed at last. I am a big fan of the Christopher Guest oeuvre, but this wasn't one of my faves; I felt that the film was a little mean-spirited toward the O'Hara character. We had originally been planning to see "FYC" on my birthday, but we had to go on Saturday instead; it's playing in a theater where two of the three screens aren't handicap-accessible, and we had to strike while it was in the downstairs theater. I'm kind of glad we saw it when we did, because it was a bit of a downer.
Sunday, I made it a Shearer trifecta by heading to Cody's Books in Berkeley, where he was signing copies of his new novel, Not Enough Indians. I'm pleased to report that he seemed like an extremely nice guy -- I asked the very first question after his talk, a rather esoteric query about his radio show, and I also complimented him on the success of the Christmas sing-a-long. He was terribly gracious and I hope he enjoyed the Berkeley audience, which seemed genuinely interested in him and his work. (Luckily, no one asked him to "do" Mr. Burns or Smithers.) There aren't a lot of celebs I truly admire, but Harry Shearer really seems like a first-rate individual, not to mention a highly intelligent one (he won on "Celebrity Jeopardy" a couple weeks ago).
As if I didn't have enough reasons to be wild about Harry, when he called on me during the question period, he referred to me (un-ironically, I'm quite sure) as "the young lady up front." Young lady! Considering that the ol' odometer is about to turn over, I really appreciated hearing that. |
posted by 125records @ 8:54 PM  |
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| 2 Comments: |
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I am also a big Harry Shearer fan and have a great deal of respect for him as an individual who, though I've never had the pleasure of meeting him personally, always seems like an intelligent, thoughtful and courteous person. Glad to hear that the reality seems to bear that out. Thanks for the details of your "Harry" doings!
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Name: Sue
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I am also a big Harry Shearer fan and have a great deal of respect for him as an individual who, though I've never had the pleasure of meeting him personally, always seems like an intelligent, thoughtful and courteous person. Glad to hear that the reality seems to bear that out. Thanks for the details of your "Harry" doings!