It has been a week of Wows. Last Friday I went to see Fiona Apple at The Greek and she was fantastic. I’ve been a fan of her music for years, but this is the first time I got to see her live, and she did not disappoint. Her recorded music has some ridiculously high vocals, which I didn’t think she’d be able to recreate in concert, but she hit all the notes with soul-baring ease. Extraordinary Machine is one of my favorite albums of all time, and her new material is extraordinarily awesome. The girl needs to eat though. She is so skinny that we wanted to throw sandwiches at her between songs.
Last Saturday we celebrated my friend Spencer’s birthday at the house, then walked to the Hollywood Forever cemetery for a movie. They were screening True Romance, in honor of director Tony Scott who passed away a couple weeks before. His wife spoke and said it was one of his favorite movies. Patricia Arquette, one of the stars of the film, also spoke through tears and said that Scott had given her her first big break in the business. I had never seen True Romance and loved it. The screenplay is by Quentin Tarantino, so it should have been no surprise. They passed out buttons with a small line illustration of Tony Scott, which helped to include all of us in his Cinespia memorial. It was a bloody fun, and lovely, night.
Last Sunday we brought Albert’s Aunt Sherry and Uncle Jerry to see Iris at the Dolby Theater. This is the third Cirque du Soleil show I’ve seen, and they are all so damn good. Iris has a new score by Danny Elfman, one of my favorite composers, which is performed gloriously live. The show is all movie-themed, and it is so smart and beautiful that it needs to be seen. I don’t tend to talk during shows, but I found myself audibly gasping ‘wow’ during many of the numbers. Where do they find these people?
Friday morning I decided to hike in Runyon Canyon to see if I could get a look at the space shuttle as it circled over Los Angeles. Clearly, nobody works regular 9 to 5 jobs in this town, because every peak of every mountain was covered in people looking up at the sky. Endeavor did a huge loop around the canyon, showing off for everyone at Griffith Observatory, Universal Studio, and the Hollywood sign. It was pretty incredible to see the space shuttle taking it’s last flight. It was even more incredible seeing a jumbo jet carrying another giant plane on it’s back. Wow!