BEEN THERE/DONE THAT: May 24

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BEEN THERE/DONE THAT: May 24

POSTED: Monday, May 24, 2010, 3:47 PM

Filed Under: Been There, Done That

Photo | Don Perdue

Momix at the Annenberg Center

When we're not editing and writing and proofing and stressing, we A&E editors keep busy getting our culture on. Since we (that'd be Patrick Rapa, music editor; Carolyn Huckabay, arts editor; Molly Eichel, movies/agenda editor; and occasionally Holly Otterbein, staff writer/arts patron) know Philly's teeming with artsy happenings, we'll give you a weekly roundup of where we've been and what we've seen. But we can't see it all. We're taking a cue from Team Meal Ticket — who diligently report on how they've spent their foodie weekends — and opening the floor to you: Leave a comment and let us know what you've been up to since Friday at 5.

CH: Carolyn Huckabay PR: Patrick Rapa ME: Molly Eichel

What We Saw:

— Caught a Saturday matinee performance of Momix at the Annenberg Center, and was (mostly) blown away. The program, Botanica, was all nature-themed and featured rapid-pace scenes on everything from ocean waves to rose petals to birds. A couple one-trick-centaur moments here and there, but the stegosaurus-skeleton scene blew anything that felt lackluster right out of the water. —CH —I'd never seen The Wrens before, so I was expecting a sleepy show that was more atmosphere than passion. I was wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong. Drawing mostly from insta-classic Meadowlands, the Wrens pushed their tunes so far, they shifted genres. I haven't seen a band work that in hard and in such collusion since Springsteen and his boys. I wasn't so impressed with handful of new songs they played (!!!) but I also haven't had a chance to listen to that album on repeat for three months straight like I did when I first heard Meadowlands. Shame on you if you missed it. —ME Where We Went: —Hit up the Trenton Avenue Arts Fest and Kensington Kinetic Sculpture Derby. Definitley impressed by the offerings, but my favorite has to go to Joe and Andrea's team for no other reason than their mascot is a toothless dog named Lil' Chuck Norris who sat asleep in his team's front basket, unfazed by the crowd and living up to his namesake's badassery. —ME What We Read: I started Justin Cronin's The Passage. Fifty pages in and I'm hooked. —PR —Faithful Been There/Done That readers might be disappointed to learn that I forsook (forsaked?) Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin — which you all said I should read next — for Barry Udall's The Lonely Polygamist, about a man who feels utterly alone despite being surrounded by this 28 children and four wives. I couldn't keep my eyes from closing last night, but I still couldn't put it down. Now I'm going to have to put Udall's first novel, The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint, on my list, as well. Don't worry, though: McCann is still on deck. —ME What We Watched: — I spent the weekend fighting a nasty cold/flu kinda thing, so TV was nice. I watched the Lost finale. I don't think there was much to "get" about this episode. Smoke-Locke-Man-In-Black was defeated thanks to some kind of Superman II device that makes strong bad guys into normal people for a while. I think the sideways reality hammered home the idea that the island is a metaphor for college. You live away from home, you meet weird people, you do weird things, you face the smoking issue head-on, you never admit you're having a good time, you think every little thing is a tragedy, you experience previously unknown levels of fear and joy and confusion, you make friends of enemies, and enemies of friends, and swap significant others in a relatively shallow dating pool, and when it's finally time for the reunion, the one you decide to go to, you realize you missed everybody, and seeing them is enough to overwhelm you with happiness but also a kind of deep-down heartache that can feel like "what the hell were were doing?" or "was that all just a dream?" or "my god we were all so young then." Oh, cold medicine. —PR — Much like Pat and the rest of the universe I watched Lost last night, and the Jimmy Kimmel show that followed it. (Oh, coffee, I love you. I need you so.) I was pleased (though not till this morning, after some mulling-over/sleeping time) with the ending, particularly that Sideways World had an actual purpose. I'm still unclear about Desmond's role, Eleanor's Sideways involvement, why Mr. Ecko et. al weren't in the church, how the chronology of purgatory works, whether dogs go to heaven, and many other things, but I'm satisfied nonetheless. —CH —In preparation for an interview that was later canceled, I watched Diddy's "Hello Good Morning" video eight or nine times (TI totally is the Captain of the Cool Kids, btw). It struck me how retro this video is. Who else would drop the cash for helicopters and explosions in this musical climate but Diddy? Like, I was almost sad there was no use of the Hype Williams fish eye lens. —ME What We Listened To: — Listened, in earnest, to the entirety of The Hold Steady's new album, Heaven Is Whenever, which Patrick Rapa wrote about last week. I hated it. HATED! I'm a live-concert-only lover of Craig Finn and co., since talk-singing, for me, isn't my iPod preference. So you'd think I would love this sing-singy effort. But lines like "I don't want you to settle/ I want you to grow" make me want to barf. —CH — Speaking of the Puffy One, I can't get enough of his Bad Boy signee Janelle Monae's new album The ArchAndroid. It simultaneously feels both throwback and like nothing I've ever heard before. Here's a woman whose voice is on par with Whitney who doesn't feel the need to belt it on a constant basis. She understands that her voice is just another instrument in her arsenal. God, she's just so good. All I want to do is talk about how good she is. Wanna join me and do just that in the comments? —ME

Jesse D

Posted 2010-05-24 13:36:39

From someone who's only seen 2 episodes of Lost, that is the best summation of the finale I've read.
The finale answered all questions but one: What happened to the candy bar the detective got out of the vending machine with his last dollar?

Brian Howard

Posted 2010-05-25 10:56:11

Juliet retrieved it from the machine. When she handed it to him, that magic "Apollo" bar "Vision'd" them both and good.

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Featuring everything from event roundups to concert reviews and sex talk, City Paper's Critical Mass is a space for off-the-wall coverage of Philly's A&E scene.

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