Spongebob the Musical

And so, as on many occasions before, Julia's big Christmas present was tickets to see a Broadway show. In this case, Spongebob the Musical.

When we bought the tickets, the show had been shown in previews off Broadway, but hadn't opened yet. Preliminary reviews were good. So tickets in the 12th row were bought and off we went...

Waiting for the Show to Begin

The show was in the Palace Theater, right on Times Square, and when Amp and I were looking at this, we realized that this was the same theater in which we had seen An American in Paris back in the fall of 2015, on an anniversary trip. Our experience with this older theater was that being higher up was like looking down an elevator shaft at the stage. So we used Citibank access codes to buy seats in the 12th row of the floor level. Which turned out to be great seats...

The Band Begins to Play

The show itself was entertaining, with some catchy songs, good performances, and a nice staging. Having at least some familiarity with the world of Spongebob from the cartoon series, it was easy to follow along with the characters and what was going on, in terms of tying things back to the show. If you weren't familiar with the cartoon series, it might have been less fun to watch.

Spongebob!!!

A very obviously kid-oriented show, but we all like it quite a bit. I thought it was worth the money and the day in New York. Julia loved it. Grace liked it. The Broadway community apparently liked it as well, as it would subsequently be nominated for 12 Tony awards, winning only 1. Ethan Slater as Spongebob was especially good, and I thought the casting overall was very good.

Ellen's Stardust Diner

After the show we intended to get back in the car and head out, but as we were leaving the theater, we were all hungry. Grace had not been to Ellen's Stardust Diner previously (the rest of us had), so we decided to wait in the not-overly-long line and have an early dinner before heading home. Grace thought the singing waitstaff was silly and fun, which about sums it up.

Another good Broadway gift for Julia...

Postscript: It was announced on July 8 that the show would close on September 16, after a run of less than a year. Low box office grosses compared to comparable shows are generally believed to be the reason, but the official reason given by the production team was that the Nederlander organization is closing the Palace Theater for renovations, leaving the show homeless. Both, I'm sure, are true. I'm glad we saw it when we did. It was well worth it.

Lava Caverns Crafting

There is a situation developing in our D&D campaign that has me needing to put together some lava terrain for an ancient fire elemental temple cavern complex. Taking a cue from some terrain building I had seen recently on Runehammer Games' YouTube channel, I decided to do mine in a similar vein.

Walkways, platforms, monuments and passages were all carved from 3/4 inch foam insulation board, with a sharp beveled edge and linear geometric patterns. This was all done with simple free hand carving using an Xacto hobby knife. I didn't bother to base coat the pieces since they would be getting multiple layers of paint.

Stage 1 was a thorough coating of a ~60/40 mix of Craftsmart "Wine" and Black. This was liberally applied with the most important thing being that the recesses were filled in. The flat surfaces were less important to get an even coat on, since they would be getting 3 more coats.

Stage 1 - 60/40 mix of "Wine" and Black

Stage 2 was a heavy sponge of "Wine", unmixed out of the bottle.

Stage 2 - Heavy sponge of "Wine"

Stage 3 was a medium sponging of Craftsmart "Terra Cotta". This was done heavily enough to lighten up the pieces pretty substantially, but not so heavy as to completely obscure the darker "Wine" color underneath.

Stage 3 - Medium sponge of "Terra Cotta"

Stage 4 - Seen below in action (complete with Arian the Sorcerer's lightning bolt template!), the final stage was a somewhat random and somewhat heavy dry brush of Folk Art "Yellow Ochre". This simple step was the magic ingredient that took the pieces from "nice" to "yeah, that's what I was going for!"

Stage 4 - Light dry brush of "Yellow Ochre"

We used these pieces in our most recent D&D session, and they looked great. More on that over on my D&D campaign blog...

Folk Art acrylic craft paints are probably better quality than Craftsmart paints, but the local Michaels store now stocks a broader range of Craftsmart colors than Folk Art, and at 70 cents each (compared to 1.59 or so for Folk Art), you can't beat the value. For bulk use in crafting projects like this, I'm liking the Craftsmart paints a lot.

Closet Remodel

Not a glamorous project to be sure, but I pulled apart the shelving in the coat closet in our laundry room (our primary everyday entrance into the house from the garage), and replaced it with the HangTrak system that we have done all of the bedroom closets and pantry in.

Part of what we wanted was better shoe storage at the bottom of the closet, and due to the fact that we have nine foot ceilings on the first floor, the hang track vertical supports aren't long enough to go from the ceiling to near the floor (they max out at 7 feet long). This necessitated a 48 inch vertical from a support at the top, and another 48 inch vertical for the show racks from another support bar halfway up the wall. It's not the best look, but when coats are hanging, it is completely hidden so it doesn't really matter.

Mostly done

Dismantling, spackling, painting and then installing the new closet system took maybe 4 hours spread over the course of a couple of days. Now instead of fixed wire shelving in a less-than-optimal arrangement, we have a 100% fully adjustable closet.

Ray Thomas (1941-2018)

Ray Thomas, a founding member of the Moody Blues, my favorite band, died on January 4 of prostate cancer at the age of 76.

Ray Thomas in recent years

Ray had been retired from touring with the band for the last 15 years or so, but I was fortunate enough to have seen him perform with the band maybe 8 or 10 times between 1982 and his retirement from the band in 2002 (has it possibly been that long??). His rich powerful voice was amazing, even though he was not considered one of the lead singers of the band (and less and less as the years went by).

Earlier times

Ray was less active with the band in later years, but he wrote a bunch of great songs from the "core seven" albums between 1967 and 1972.

Moody Blues from the core seven years

He would probably be best known for the flute solo on Nights in White Satin, but Moodies fans would probably pick Legend of a Mind (this link is Royal Albert Hall in 2000, not the famous Red Rocks show as it claims to be) performed live as his most lasting contribution. The band retired Legend when Ray left, and I still miss it. Shows always ended with Nights, Legend, Question and Ride My Seesaw...

Ray on stage, 1990's

Other favorites of mine that were written by Ray include And the Tide Rushes In, For My Lady, Eternity Road, Our Guessing Game. There are many more.

It is nice that the announcement that the Moodies were being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year came before Ray's passing, but that is probably a more important event for the fans than the band.

I had hoped that the band's induction would bring Ray and Mike Pinder back on stage one last time. Sadly, that can't happen now (and likely wouldn't have anyway).

Thanks for the memories, Ray. And all the great music.