Weekly Round-up: June 21

This was supposed to post last week, but with one thing and another (first some internet downtime and then some “me” downtime), I’m just getting to it today. The plan is for this to be a weekly post, but like everything else, it seems that it’s taking a little longer to get started than I’d like it to.

Once I get into the habit and routine, this will be a weekly roundup of what I’m reading, listening to, watching, attending, and doing. This one, however, is not quite a weekly roundup; more like a “last 3 or 4 weeks” listing.

Reading

• Culture Making, Andy Crouch. I’m still working through this, which is unusual for me (to be taking this long with a single book, that is). It’s deep and thought-provoking enough, though, that I’m working through it a chapter at a time and letting myself take more than a month to finish reading it. Weird.
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Actually, if you want to talk about what I’ve been reading in the past month or so, you can put the entire series in there. I’m listening to them on audio book, so I suppose it’s not technically reading, but it’s close. I wanted to get through the series up to book 6 before the movie comes out in a few weeks.
• The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, Michael Chabon. I’ve just started this one, but I really liked The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, so I’m eager to get into it.

In and Around Calgary

• twentyfive, Decidedly Jazz Danceworks’ twenty-fifth anniversary retrospective. I actually saw this twice–I went to opening night with co-workers, and then Colin and I went to see it again later in the run. Great celebration of a great company that’s had a significant impact on the cultural community.
• Evil Dead: The Musical, Ground Zero Theatre and Hit & Myth Productions. It was everything it was promised to be and more. Add together the inherent cheese of B horror movies, the inherent silliness of musical theatre, and a huge dose of meta references to both, and you have a night of theatre worth seeing. The run’s been extended; if you’re in Calgary and you’re a fan of the Evil Dead movies, you should go.
• Heterophobia at Sage Theatre’s Ignite! festival. We went with friends to this one, which was written by a local artist that both Colin and I have worked with. Very interesting. Thought-provoking and funny. I’d wanted to catch more of the festival, but it just didn’t work out.
• Off the Record: A conversation about arts development at TRUCK Gallery. This was a community forum featuring two CADA staff members, talking about the things that CADA’s best at. I also checked out the exhibit, At Variance, while I was there.

Watching

• Everwood. Colin and I finished season 1 of Everwood a couple of weeks ago. I’ve watched it many, many times, but he’s never seen the show, so I’ve been introducing him. Season 2 has finally been released on DVD; once we pick that up, we’ll keep going.
• Arrested Development, season 3. This has been one of our “marathon” shows lately. We’ve watched the first two seasons in spurts over the past few months, and now that we’re actually in the same place again, we can keep going with the third. It’s always nice to be watching a sitcom-length show; it makes it a lot easier to squeeze in an episode (or three or four) here and there.
• Chuck. I mainlined both seasons during my last couple weeks of school (papers? Who needs to worry about papers!), and have watched season 1 again since I got back to Calgary. And I’m guessing I’ll watch it again before the summer’s over, since Colin hasn’t seen it, and it’s totally his type of show. There’ll be a little break, though; we have to get through the rest of Arrested Development and season 2 of Everwood first.
• Up. We’re woefully behind in our summer movie watching, but we finally saw this last night, and it was totally worth my groggy Monday at work today.