Well, I'm back after the awesomeness of Christmas and New Year's, and Monica and I had a great time celebrating with friends old and new, rejoicing at the birth of our Savior, and getting a little breather from our new lives as working adults.
This last weekend, we took in quite a bit of really sweet entertainment. On Saturday night, Monica and I headed down to have dinner with my parents in Niles, at the Italian restaurant where we had our rehearsal dinner. The place is only about 3 minutes from my house, and it was definitely some good grubbin'. Afterward, we headed directly across the street to the Essanay Silent Film Museum. You see, Niles is now just a little quirky subsection of Fremont, but back at the turn of the twentieth century it was a hotspot for the filming and production of silent movies. One of the most prolific silent movie studios was a place called Essanay, which in the handful of years that it was open produced and released over 400 movies. So on Saturday evenings, the museum, which is actually one of the original theaters that showed movies in Niles around the turn of the century, shows silent movies. This last Saturday night, the theme was "Comedies from 1926." So we saw these three flicks:
Long Fliv The King
Saturday Afternoon
And the feature, A Gentleman In Paris
All of us weren't really sure what to expect, but we loved it. Saturday Afternoon was a little weird and we didn't like the premise, but we thought the other two movies were hilarious. And all of the movies were accompanied by a live pianist, who pseudo-improvised on musical themes to suit the mood of the scenes for the length of every film. I loved the simplicity of the movies, in contrast to cacophony of inane stuff that goes in to a lot of today's films. There was a innocence about, coupled with the good laughs that made me really appreciate their creativity and artistry.
Last night, we saw Andy McKee, an acoustic guitarist who was become wildly well-known through his YouTube videos. But he isn't just an internet star - this dude was amazing. I was blown away by his musicality and musicianship, and it was a joy to see him have so much fun playing beautiful music. He's touring with a guy named Don Ross, an amazing guitarist from Canada, and they did a bunch of duets together that were amazing. Below is the duet that they opened with, a cover of a song by The Yellowjackets called "Spirit of the West:"
All in all, it was a good weekend. Life is good - see you soon.
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