February 24th I treated myself to not one, but two Matt Nathanson concerts at The Warehouse in Fairfield, CT. He was doing an acoustic run in smaller venues than usual and since most shows sold out so quickly he did a VIP show as well which you did not need tickets to the concert in order to attend to allow for more fans to have access, which was really cool.
For the VIP show he spun the wheel of Nathanson 3x as well as did a Q&A with the audience. There were some really great questions and I think Matt really enjoyed himself. Afterwards we all got to meet him as well as get a signed poster and coffee mug.
The wheel spins were Song-Spiration, High School and Wedding Dress which led to performances of Room at the End of the World, Illusions a song he had written for a girl in high school and of course, Wedding Dress.
For the show, the wheel was switched out a bit. Unfortunately, the crowd was less than stellar. One woman kept yelling “FASTER” and at first Matt said “Do you want me to spin the wheel faster or sing the song? I have one and a half singles, do you think I am not going to sing it?” and when she yelled it again later, he said “I am literally taking it off the setlist right now” and he did – I wasn’t sure if he was serious until we got to the end of the show, and Faster, the song I was *most* looking forward to hearing, wasn’t done. He did throw in an older less played song instead, which I am sure made the super fans happy but as a more casual fan I didn’t really notice that he did that. The crowd continued to yell out – and I have to wonder if his witty responses were making it seem like he was condoning the behavior and making people think it was ok to shout out things and if it would have been less if he had instead ignored them and just continued on with the show. (Though I can see how it would be hard to ignore it – but simply asking security to find the person shouting and escort them out may have gotten his annoyance across a bit better and would have made things more enjoyable for the rest of us as well. *shrugs*) Despite the song I most wanted to hear being cut, I had an enjoyable night and definitely need to try and see him more on future tours – even though I doubt he will be coming back to Fairfield anytime soon!
I was not a teen until the late ’90s and I’m also not a huge movie watcher, but with Fandom Running Club starting a “Cult Classic” medal series, well maybe I should see what the 80s had to offer so I can try and guess on some of the clues to come. (The first one is “Dont You 4K About Me” – The Breakfast Club – which is an 80s movie I have seen!)
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is a collection of poetry from Mr Rogers. There are a lot included and a lot of great illustrations to go with it – starting with the famous “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” which was the opening song to his show. I think my favorite in the book was “I’m Glad I’m the Way I Am” – the first verse “I’m glad I’m the way I am, I’m glad I’m me. I’, glad I’m the way That I’m supposed to be” resonates with me. The rest of it too, but mostly that first part. There are a lot of different topics covered in each of the poems/songs as well.
Love You Head To Toe is an adorable book about babies and comparing things they do to animals. Everything rhymes and the illustrations are made of paper piecing which you know I am alll about. Some of the animals featured are sea stars, turtles, kangaroos, hedgehogs. Each animal is illustrated as well as an illustration of an ADORABLE baby in a similar pose to the animals. A ton of work must have gone into these illustrations alone!
Baby Animals with their Families is a picture book that shows baby animals, with, you guessed it, their families. Some cuties included are chimps, lions, polar bears, and a ton of other adorable babies. A bunch of adorable photos and some interesting facts about families and what they are called and how they survive out in the wild.
Super Structures is all about some of the great structures in the world and their history. Building structures can go all the way back to the pyramids. In addition to talking a bit about the structures, there is also instructions on how to build your own using different pieces. In addition to pyramids you can also learn about and build pillars and posts, arches, domes, and my personal favorite, bridges. It features some of my favorite bridges – Golden Gate in San Francisco and Sydney Harbour Bridge in Australia. It then goes into towers and sky scrapers, big wheels, and finally wind turbines. I kind of wish I had the actual model kit so I could try to build some of these structures instead of just the e-book where I can only read about them.
The Sea Book helps you learn all about, what else? The sea! It shows what the bottom of the sea looks like and tells us why the sea is important and then goes into what lives in the sea. Of course there are plenty of fish in the sea – and it tells about some of the things that fish can do and some of the traits that fish in the sea have. It also talks about other mammals and animals in the sea, and even the life cycle of a sea turtle. The end of the book talks about some man made problems with the sea and how you can help. This book is pretty short, but is jam-packed with a TON of great information about the sea and some beautiful illustrations as well!
Not-So-Brave penguin is about Percy and Posy. Percy is brave and not scared of anything. Posy is scared of just about everything (kind of like me!) When Percy goes out to play and doesn’t come back, Posy gets worried. Everyone assures her that he is fine and that she just worries too much (also kind of like me!) but she decides to be brave and jump into the sea and try and find Percy. She finds Percy who is surprised that she made it to him – and Posy starts to get scared because of the dark. But Percy shows her that the sky was actually not scary, but BEAUTIFUL instead. Percy thanks Posy and tells her that she was brave!! She didn’t know she was brave!
