Things are okay with me these days. Busy as usual of course, but having a lot of fun too. The weather has been beautiful, up into the 60’s most every day. Drove my Mustang Saturday.
The main thing is I’ve been preparing for this cabaret show. Learned 40 songs in the last few weeks. Most of them on sax but a few on keyboards, adding orchestra, accordion, organ, etc. to compliment the piano. Finally last week they started having full rehearsals with the band, and I was able to see how what I’d prepared works in context. And, as predicted, there are lot of changes, but I think it’s getting there. One of the high points of the set is Scenes From an Italian Restaurant from Moving Out. Great sax part. Now it’s a matter of making the thing tight, but overall the music is coming together.
So if you’re into this kinda thing, come on down, November 18 – 20 at ICS for the Broadway Then and Now cabaret show. Meanwhile, we have rehearsal every night this week. I told my boss this morning I need to leave a 5 sharp each day this week and I’m taking Friday off, and she was cool with all of it.
In other news, I’ve had an intense origami focus the last few days. I finally finished updating the diagrams for my Dragon a few weeks back, and went on to diagramming my Inchworm, a new model. Then John Montroll came into town for a visit, and we hung out Friday night, going out to dinner and staying up late talking origami. He showed me a bunch of new models form his forthcoming book, Origami Math. John is working at such an advanced level these days, it always gives me alot to think about afterwards. His newer stuff is maybe not as hard to fold, but the underlying designs tend to be deeper. John is famous for his animals, although of late he’s been immersed in more geometric subjects. I’m encouraging him to do a book of Modern Animals, revisiting some of his favorite subjects with his current approach.
Sunday was my day to volunteer to teach origami at the AMNH. It went really well. I taught my inchworm and butterfly, and a new butterfly too. All my models were successful for my students. I’m trying to finish my Butterfly II, because it’s so much nicer to fold than my old butterfly. It works great from a rectangle, but if you fold it from a square you get an extra flap of paper that you can use to make legs.
The girls came with me and folded some wreathes. After the session, we found the secret way from the cafeteria to the whale room. We spent a couple hours in the museum, hitting the highlights, and then went for a nice walk thru central park.
I feel like I’ve been doing tons of driving recently, just scooting around town, and into the city and back. Dropped of Lizzy at some bizarre protopostapocolyptic mall in Yonkers for a Birthday party the other day. Blech.