Bill Cosby

On February 12, I woke up with no expectations for the weekend. Through some turn of events (while washing dishes), I remembered my Bill Cosby show was that night! I drove up to San Rafael to the Marin Veterans’ Memorial Auditorium. I regretted leaving my camera at home as I pulled up to perfect light on the lagoon surrounding the center. It wasn’t until later that I realized this was the Frank Lloyd Wright building everyone had mentioned. I’ll have to go back and take a closer look around. It’s cool, though, that in the last few months, I’ve seen two great performances within in a Wright building (Andrew Bird at the Guggenheim).

As I walked in, I was surrounded by old people. Sweet. I found my seat which turned out to be just like a front row seat. Bill Cosby entered the stage from my side to a standing ovation. In place of his usual sweater, he was wearing a long sleeve sweatshirt, sweatpants, and brown crocs with socks. Few could pull that off in a spotlight. He took a seat in his chair and started off by introducing us to a friend of his in the audience. Then he started to tell the story of how he knew her but after 15 minutes, she still hadn’t come up in the story, and so he mentioned, “Don’t worry, I’ll get to you eventually”. He snaked us around the stories of growing up with his mom and joining the Navy and eventually tied us back to the woman in the audience, who apparently wrote his letter of recommendation to get him in college after the Navy. She was a physical therapist in the Navy. He credits her for the opportunities he has today. He talked for 90 minutes, thanked everyone and abruptly walked off stage. We were all on our feet immediately and he passed 3 feet in front of me and my eyes teared up. Bill Cosby has always been an idol. I could repeat what he says verbatim on stage and no one would laugh. He has a gift for telling a story and I’m so thankful for getting to see him live & up close. A lady behind me in the bathroom line mentioned she’d seen him 5x and never heard a repeat story. Incredible.

I was in such good spirits that I stopped by In & Out on the way home, which I enjoyed over the 15 minutes it took to cross Golden Gate back into the city. Oh, and I got to hear a cop on 101 repeating “please exit the freeway” on his speaker to some car by In & Out. All of us in the parking lot were kind of giggling. Such a wonderful night!

Birthday

My birthday was kind of super terrible. Not much happened but my hormones appeared to be raging at such a level that it made everything bad. Tyler called me on the bus to work. While talking to him, we all got kicked off the bus halfway to work because the road was blocked. Two minutes after walking, cue torrential downpour. “Walking in the pouring rain on my birthday. Awesome.” That has never happened to me ever. Tyler was on the phone through the whole drama and thoroughly enjoyed it. Melissa & Kali hung a Happy Birthday banner for me and Amy sent me some gorgeous flowers, so those were some nice highlights! I did the real birthday celebration Saturday night. We got dinner at Lers Ros and then spent the evening at Edinburgh Castle. It was still freezing and rainy, but it was nice hanging out with friends. And luckily, between Cosby & Mozart, I had some pretty amazing bookends to the actual day.

Mozart’s Requiem

I’d been looking forward to this SF Symphony performance since I bought my tickets a year ago. I decided to use my free upgrade for this performance, so the lady found a seat for me in the loge section, her favorite part of the hall. I immediately saw the difference between my $30 ticket and the $90 one I was upgraded, too, as I walked by lounge areas with plush sofas in the halls lining the doors. I felt so important.

The night opened with Mindaugas Urbaitis’ Lacrimosa which was inspired by the “Lacrimosa” portion of Mozart’s Requiem. It’s one of my favorite parts, so it was like I got to hear it twice, as it was nearly identical to Mozart’s. The entire back wall of the stage was filled by 100+ person choir. It was just a teaser for what was to come.

From there, the night moved to Feldman’s Rothko Chapel, the most unique SF Symphony experience I’ve had to date. The stage was completely dark (a first). There were spotlights on each of the 4 musicians, while the choir lining the entire back wall was dimly lit. They even positioned one of the soloist up above the stage. The violinist didn’t wear shoes because he had to walk to 5 different positions on stage throughout, so as to have the sound coming at us from different places in space (you can see the layout in the photo). Had I heard this piece out of context, I probably would have disliked it. However, it came with the introduction that it was written for the opening of Rothko Chapel in Texas, which is an octagon building housing huge murals from Mark Rothko. I happen to love Rothko. The Rothko room at the Tate Modern was mesmerizing to me. Something about his blending of colors just creates such a vivid sense of emotion. That said, as they performed the piece, I pictured myself back at the Tate and in that context, the music was perfect. I decided that if a Rothko painting made sound, this is exactly what you would hear. There was an old man next to me, who asked me what I thought during intermission, and it was so lovely to have him completely agree with my reaction. I heard some old ladies say, “that was terrible” but obviously, they’d never seen a Rothko painting. It was brilliant. The man & I were giddy talking about it. I suddenly loved my expensive seat even more. I had a friend for 10 minutes.

I found this video which not only shows the Rothko room at the Tate but also the actual Rothko Chapel.

Update 3/27 I just watched the documentary, “Rothko’s Rooms”. The performance I saw was only 2 days shy of falling on the anniversary of Rothko’s death. And when Rothko selected his paintings for the Seagram collection at the Tate, it was for their original building, not the new Tate that I saw, which allowed for a larger space. They arrived in London the day he was found dead in his studio, oddly enough. Either way, I think his friends & family were accurate in describing his work, not as a place where you search for meaning and answers, but as an experience of emotion.

I was on the edge of my seat when the choir funneled into the raisers and the stage in front of them filled in with a full symphony. I literally got chills from the opening notes. I’ve been in love with Mozart’s Requiem since the moment I saw Amadeus so many years ago. It was like a dream come true to hear the full piece come alive right in front of me. Considering the downer context of the piece, I felt a little weird during the performance because I couldn’t stop smiling as the full choir harmonized a minor chord and the instruments swelled around it. Love. Love. Love. One of the best hours of my life.