Smile, it makes people nervous.

Finished Red Rising (Red Rising, Golden Son, Morning Star) series by Pierce Brown and would like to recommend it to anybody who likes grand space opera scale sci-fi. It's really well written, with solid and gripping storyline through all three books, great characters, and a satisfying ending. It's like a mad mix of Hunger Games, Game of Thrones (with a lot more bodies), Communist Manifesto and New Testament set in the future where humanity learned to control gravity, expanded throughout the Solar System yet still didn't learn to do without slavery and tyranny.

"Demokracy <…> the Noble Lie - the idea that men are brothers and are created equal."

Seeing An Act of God made me wish somebody would adapt Книгу Натаниэля for Broadway and make this into a two act play. Not that the play wasn't ninety minutes of fun on its own. Some good laughs, some really good laughs, some preachy moralizing (in a play about god, imagine that!) They pulled their punches in few spots. Gabriel is "the angel who dictated the words of the Quran to Muhammed. That of course was the beginning of Islam, and at the request of the producers, that is the last you’ll be hearing about Islam tonight." And it was. Can't really blame them, though my philosophy is, if you are going to offend, go all out. Thankfully, there are still Jews, Christians and sports fans.

Jim Parsons as a vessel to host God was indeed wonderful. His mannerisms and expressions were spot on. "For lo, I have endowed him with a winning, likable personality; and know of a certainty that your apprehension of My depthless profundities will be aided by his offbeat charm" and "In the desert I appeared as a burning bush. On Broadway, I appear as Sheldon Cooper. Know thy audience." I think it would have been a nice touch if they took it one step further and had Leonard play archangel Michael. The actual guy was sort of blah.

Mac OS X based Universe 2.0, as a replacement for Windows, was a hoot ("we got Steve Jobs few years ago,") but I was very tempted to yell out a suggestion to go open source.

Loved the set. Really loved the special pride Playbill issue.

The play origins go to @TheTweetOfGod by David Javerbaum, the former writer for The Daily Show. Ironically, I don't follow twitter (any twitter), never really watched The Daily Show, and still haven't gotten past the first season of The Big Bang Theory (hoping it will get to Netflix some day.)

If this sounds like something you might enjoy, you still have a month to catch it at the theater. And if you can't make it, there is always a book.

Saw "Wicked" on Broadway on Friday. They've been selling discounted tickets all over the place and after overdosing on Shakespeare last year I felt like seeing something completely different. Really enjoyed it, it was funny and clever and had nodes to Shakespeare, Socrates, and "Legally Blond" and lines like "Where I'm from, the best way to bring people together... is to give them a really good enemy." The story of "Wicked", in case you haven't heard of it before, is what was happening in Oz before Dorothy dropped in (sorry, there is just no way around that little pun) and who The Wicked Witch of the West really was. If you've been eying Broadway repertoire and wondering what to see, "Wicked" is a pretty good choice. Kids in the audience seemed to be enjoying themselves, too.

Saw Globe's production of Richard III today, which plays in repertory with Twelfth Night we attended earlier. This play is just as spectacularly produced, with lavish costumes faithful to Shakespeare's era, authentic music and spare but lovely decor. The cast was great, handling bard's words with ease and grace, fitting their characters perfectly... except, that is, for Richard, who was despicable and not in a good way. Richard, in my opinion, was supposed to be vile and conniving, sinister, manipulative and ruthless, but at no point goofy or clownish, and he certainly was not written as the play's comic relief. I was absolutely appalled when Mark Rylance limped and stumbled onto the stage to wink and grimace his way through "Now is the winter of our discontent..." It got progressively worse from there, I literally cringed every time Richard showed up and opened his mouth. I was sorely tempted to revive the tradition of throwing rotten produce at the stage. For the life of me I can't understand why the rest of the cast was so convincingly acting out a tragedy while Richard was performing a bad gag-filled comedy.

Saw Lincoln Theater's production of Macbeth yesterday. It was a grand spectacle. The sets were elegantly spare and moodily dark, with an interpretation of "The Seal of God's Truth" mandala etched into the center of the stage. Few moving components, tables, stairs and the like, were used to sketch the scene, with more of the effect achieved through clever lighting than through an actual decor. Costumes were chic and sleek, Lady Macbeth in a black strapless gown (!), with lots of studded leathers for the war scenes and three-piece long coat suits off the battlefield for the men. Not a kilt in sight. The overall color scheme was very much to my taste, black on black with a rare splash of red and silver.

As a contrast to everybody else's elegant attire the gender-bending Witches and Hecate were somewhat appropriately dressed in tattered rags and sported bizarre makeup and hairdos. And there were a bit too much of them, more than what you would normally expect, if you were just going by Shakespeare's text. They acted out some of the parts, like the sergeant, the porter, the third murderer, etc. They were lurking and cavorting in the background and through the scenes, and generally suggesting a much more active role in the events. Hecate, who normally has just a bit part, was all over the thing, which made her complaint of not being included in the original scheme with Macbeth rather puzzling. And in addition to the three expected witches there were some other witch-like characters crawling around the stage, not serving any artistic purpose that I could discern. Not sure what was up with that. The witches + Hecate + the other creatures were just a tiny bit over the top.

The acting was uneven, Shakespeare sure doesn't come naturally to everybody. Unfortunately it came least naturally to Macbeth himself, played by Ethan Hawke. Hawke can act, and overact in spots, but clearly pronounce his lines, not so much, at least not so that anybody past first row could catch. Malcolm, on the other hand, was loud and clear but couldn't act. I rather liked the neurotic Lady Macbeth, I think Anne-Marie Duff did a decent job of her, and they had good chemistry with Hawke. The rest of the cast were good as well.

It was a contrast to the Globe's faithful production of "Twelfth Night", with their authentic costumes, setting and music, but riveting in its own way. The atmosphere, sets, costumes, great music, strobe lights and projections, were very cool. Director's vision - quite interesting. Acting, not excellent but mostly good. Few suggestions: trim down Weird Sisters, nix the Hecate and teach Ethan Hawke to speak above a whisper and deliver his lines (mumbling "tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow" - so not cool). Overall very enjoyable but not of the standing ovations caliber.

I am on vacation right now (it was either that or flying to/from Boston during Thanksgiving week, which was out of the question) so today I decided to tear myself away from the favorite spot on the couch and work on some cultural enrichment. Visited Frick Collection for the first time. Their special exhibition right now is "Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Hals: Masterpieces of Dutch Painting from the Mauritshuis". There are fifteen paintings all together on loan from the Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis in The Hague, with Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring" given pride of place in its own room. It's pretty, tiny and there probably wouldn't be all this hype about it if not for Scarlett Johansson. The rest of the paintings are crammed together in another room. The exhibition is small but nice, if you like Dutch painters. It's not that much different from Frick's permanent collection, which has its own three Vermeers (or, at least, that's how many I was able to identify), some Rembrandts and other stuff as well. I am not big on portraits, which dominate the collection. Their Turners were pretty nice and I really liked the clocks. Surprisingly, at 2pm on a cold and rainy Tuesday there was an actual line to get into the museum and it wasn't all made up of tourists either.

After two hours of culture, I detoured into the shopping mecca of Madison Avenue. Not my usual haunts by any stretch, but N.'s stepmom requested a Mulberry bag (that's like Burberry but fancier, in case you were wondering) so there I went. It was sort of cool to walk into the store, point at a seemingly random purse and tell the sales person "I'll take that", without inquiring about the price, trying it on, etc. Sure, I buy exorbitantly priced accessories every day, nothing special here. All the bags I've ever owned in my entire life, including luggage probably don't add up to this one ugly purse.

To finish off the day on the right note, I rendezvoused with a_lazy_legend at the Cort Theater for recently opened "Waiting for Godot" featuring Patrick Stewart as Vladimir and Ian McKellen as Estragon or Professor Xavier and Magneto in "Waiting for Godot" as Lena called it. Since I didn't get tickets ahead of time we ended up with really cheap standing room "seats", which in retrospect wasn't very smart of me, I have a tendency to pass out if I stand too long. So somewhere in the middle of first act I quietly migrated to the steps, which turned out to be more comfortable than the usual theater seats, since you can stretch your legs. Given that we were mezzanine center, the unobstructed view was great too. Play was excellent, both McKellen and Stewart were awesome, and the production was very well done, though I suspect some slight reinterpretation of original Beckett. I enjoyed it tremendously. The play is running until March 2nd and I highly recommend it. I am thinking of seeing "No Man's Land" with the same cast as well, if I get a chance.

Finished Caleb Carr's Dr. Laszlo Kreizler Mystery Series, which at the moment is comprised of two books: The Alienist and The Angel of Darkness. The genre could be defined as a historical psychological murder mystery. Historically it's set in New York at the very end of 19th century: 1896 and 1897 respectively. Dr. Laszlo Kreizler is "an alienist" or what we would now call a shrink, specializing in child psychology but also providing psychological evaluations of criminals for "insanity plea" court cases. He is uniquely qualified to find a killer when few young boy-prostitutes turn up brutally murdered in The Alienist. He is assisted by a rather interesting cast of characters: a journalist; a secretary who dreams of becoming a detective and is one of the first few women to have been hired by NYC police department; two Jewish police detectives, Marcus and Lucius Isaacson; and two former criminals, one of them a 12-year-old boy, who are now in Doctor's employ. They are all assembled and given a task of investigating the murder by the president of the board of New York City Police Commissioners: Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt at the time was trying to rid NYC police department of a wide spread corruption and Doctor's secret investigation was undertaken with president's blessing because it was obvious that it wouldn't get a fair effort from the actual detective force.

What Kreizler ends up doing in the first book is profiling a serial killer, method that was just being developed and tentatively employed in Europe for other high-profile cases (like Jack the Ripper). That, together with some "modern" forensic techniques Isaacsons use (author's vintage point is priceless in identifying the ones that actually work), as well as clever deductions, research and good old-fashioned detective work make up an investigation.

Second book was written in a different voice and author had a hard time in keeping his chosen narrator's language entirely consistent, it would slip into a more sophisticated tone every once in a while. The story started out with a kidnapping of a daughter of a high Spanish diplomatic official on the eve of Spanish-American war and concentrated on the slow unraveling of the kidnapper's gruesome past.

The mysteries themselves were gripping enough, though I am not a big fan of psychobabble and could stand a lot less of it. Some story lines were a bit predictable and character actions repetitive, especially across two books but writing was good enough to hold one's attention with enough suspense.

My favorite part of both books, however, was the historical backdrop of New York City, which was actually just transforming to incorporate the five boroughs. Caleb Carr is a historian and a New Yorker and it shows in the details and descriptions of the streets and neighborhoods, buildings and parks, landmarks and people themselves. You could feel yourself walking or driving along the streets noting existing sites, noticing missing ones. I even opened up a map for reference while reading.

( A bit of history for inquisitive minds )

First in the Sebastian St. Cyr mystery series by C. S. Harris. It could have done with fewer descriptions of admittedly lousy London weather, and especially of the way that weather smells(!). Also, I suspect that constructs such as "sexual assault" were not common to the early 19th century, if used at all. I figured out the murderer about half way through, likely not because I am so clever (though I certainly am exceedingly clever ;) but because the main goal of the story was to show the Machiavellian intricacies of British politics and iniquities of the society of the times. At least that's what I thought. I liked the protagonist, who was clever, sarcastic and jaded in just the right measure. The writing was rough in spots and wanted a bit more authenticity, there were few rather preachy bits I didn't care for, and way too many smells but overall it was a good book for an easy summer reading. I would recommend this if you like historical (specific period is immediately pre-Regency) mysteries.

Finished reading a very fun book: Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan. It's a blend of mystery, techno-thriller (somewhat, in a way, if you squint) and a quest. It's also a bit of a very well written Google product placement ad and an ode to all things Googly but I am not holding it against the book. I also hope the author got something nice from Google for his efforts :) If you are nerdy bookish techy, like mysteries or fantasy, and/or work for Google, give this a try. Festina lente!

Единственное, что я унаследовала от мамы - это любовь к книгам и ангельский характер. Поэтому я очень люблю рекомендовать книги, даже когда меня об этом совершенно не просят, и совсем не люблю их ругать. На вопросы ЧГК, кстати, такое мировозрение совершенно не распространяется. Так что с большой неохотой и искренним сожалением я хочу вам посоветовать не читать "Космобиолухов" Ольги Громыко и Андрея Уланова. Если вам очень сильно захочется почитать юмористической фантастики, лучше перечитайте Дугласа Адамса, Терри Прэтчетта или Гарри Гаррисона, даже, возможно, "Чудеса в Гусляре", хотя я не уверена насколько хорошо они пережили время. Хуже примитивного и натужного юмора "Космобиолухов" может быть только ужасный язык, которым они написаны. Возможно, это полностью отвечает правилам русского языка, я с ними, к сожалению, практически не знакома, но "каждое" второе "слово" записанное в "кавычках" раздражает со "страшной" силой. Вдобавок, персонажи отличаются глубиной, историей и мотивацией плохо нарисованных бумажных кукол, а концовка полна смысла, примерно, как оборванное на полуслове газетное рекламное объявление. О метафорах я даже и говорить не хочу. В общем, мне не понравилось.