The Year of Celebration

What a week of loveliness. London has been good to me thus far. Yes, there are ups and downs of moving countries, especially as I'm jobless and homeless, but London has so much going on that there are fantastic distractions. Those distractions this week were two amazing concerts. The first one on Tuesday was Langhorne Slim & The Law and The Lumineers at Brixton Academy. The second was The Avett Brothers at The Forum supported by Grace Potter and The Nocturnals. I had intended to review the first gig the day after, but I was up until 3am the night before and then life took over (coupled with a good amount of exhaustion) and I kept starting the post and failing to finish. So here we go: A phenomenal displ ay of musical genius. That's how I would describe Tuesday night. Those two class acts deserve nothing but praise. Before I continue I should admit, as a disclaimer on any grounds of bias, I do call Slim and David (his banjo and key...

Yes, it's true. My heart is on fire. Ok, to be fair, it already was, but I'm on a high from last night's Passenger concert at the Vogue Theatre in Vancouver. I arrived in Canada yesterday and barely had time to settle in before the lovely one took me out for a night on the town. We arrived in the middle of the opening act's set, and unfortunately I didn't catch his name, but it was a delightful start. But I was really inspired by the second act, a young man named  Joshua Hyslop , who performed on his acoustic guitar with a cello for accompaniment.  The crowd was predominantly female (of all ages) and there were some drunken members there, especially the older women who kept yelling "You're ADORABLE!" at him. And to be fair, he was very adorable, and extremely talented. I look forward to hearing more from him. As for the main act, my love introduced me to Passenger and I was immediately hooked. I'm even more of a fan now. I have all his albu...

Remembrance Day. Or Veterans' Day for you Americans. This doesn't need much description as wel all know what to celebrate here, our veterans.  Though I did find it fun to mark 11:11 on 11.11.11 especially because not only does it work in either  month/day order, but it's the only time in our lifetime that the same numbers are going to happen. Likely, much longer than that.  I am highly damaged today. Yesterday I went to one of the games of the World Rugby Classic that's held in Bermuda every year, but this was my first time attending. Man, have I been missing out?! It was so much fun. Someone I know called it the Ex-Pat's CupMatch . The party continued to Sophie's house until 6 in the morning, so today is marked for recovery.

No post yesterday because I was thoroughly miserable. Any particular reason? Well, no. Which makes being bipolar so frustrating sometimes, because I was on a high all week following my birthday (and not having the usual birthday crises). So I finished work at 3pm, got into bed, and didn't leave until 6am the next morning. I got a little work done on my children's book though (from the comfort of my bed) so at least I achieved something. All of my friends went to a concert at Snorkel Park. Mischka, a Bermudian reggae artist who was recently signed to Matthew McConaughey's new record label, was the headliner. But I couldn't even bring myself to shower, let alone get gussied up to go to a concert. And I had no amount of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) either so wasn't really concerned. Although, I woke up feeling fine today and now regret not going out! Ah, you can't win 'em all (even if that's what this year of celebration is about). So I just decided to go dou...

TO THE GAME! Today involved actually heading to the Cricket game to watch the final day of Cup Match. Well, I didn't do much watching, I did a lot of wandering, eating, drinking and gambling at Crown & Anchor. Crown & Anchor involves a table with the 4 suits, and a crown and anchor. You place your bet on whichever you like and the dealer rolls three dice with each side representing a square. If you get one, you double your money, two, triple your money...and so on. I broke even, but ended up buying an airhorn necklace (Bermp! Bermp!) by Alexandra Mosher so finished down by the end of the day. My friend Jen is visiting from Toronto (and I'm visiting her in a few weeks to go to a wedding - or "veddin" in Bermudian). She arrived off the Air Canada flight at lunchtime and we took her straight to the game, she was under strict orders not to wear St. George's colours, which are light blue and dark blue. Somerset, the team I support, is dark blue and red. The mat...

No, it's not a post about acting....but the rehearsal and dinner ahead of Aziza's wedding. I'm still adjusting to life in Bermuda, running around doing errands and catching up with friends. Unfortunately, a dear friend was recently diagnosed with MS and I desperately wanted to see her before she moved to the UK for treatment. I mention this as I feel any opportunity to bring attention to this disease and it's treatment is a good thing. To give to the MS Society please click here . After a few glasses of wine, on the beautiful porch overlooking the harbour, I raced up to the rehearsal at Fort Scaur (wearing beautiful new clothes that my lovely friend had thrown upon me ahead of her move). The rehearsal was mostly figuring out what to do on the day, and meeting the rest of the bridal party (namely the groomsmen). Pictured is Cal at the site, taken just after they had chosen the location. Dinner followed at Cal's grandmother's house and then we took the overseas g...

1984. What a wonderful year that turned out to be. Why, might y ou ask? Well, because I was born. And I suppose it's also worth a mention that the world fortunately was not what George Orwell predicted (unless you're a conspiracy theorist) in his book of the same name, published today, June 8th, in 1949. Why else was 1984 a great year? Well, on today's date in 1984 homosexuality was declared legal in the Australian state of New South Wales. As I've mentioned before I'm all for equal rights in every arena, including sexuality. Whether you're gay, straight, bisexual, transgender or transexual I say get married, if that's what floats your boat. No majority should ever be able to affect the rights of a minority. It's frankly disgustingly late for such equality. Enough of the tirade, this is a blog about celebrating after all! Which I've done plenty of today. After a red-eye flight from LAX, and a 4 hour layover in Baltimore I arrived in Bermuda in time ...

Today in 1984 Tetris was released. Ah, childhood memories! So what better way to celebrate than the Transformers' video game launch at The Redbury at Hollywood & Vine. I went with Nadia (sister) to see my friend Megane's band Black Cherry play. So happy to see Meg as the night I met her she fled to London the next day and she was flown in especially for this. Sadly, the gamers are total nerds and whilst Meg rocked out they softly nodded their heads. But our little group loved it. Black Cherry are truly fantastic, check them out on facebook here . And here's a video I took of last night's performance: Today in 1933 the first drive-in movie theater opened, in Camden County, N.J. Now, I've never been to a drive-in, but I'd love to go. More modern versions of drive-ins tend to be the Cemetery Screenings in LA, or the Bryant Park films in NYC, or in Bermuda the Moonlight Movie series on the beach and in the parks. But all of those require good weather. Fo...

Today was one of those stay at home kind of days (when I know I should probably at least exercise, but whatever - that doesn't sound celebratory to me today). However, today is David Boreanaz's birthday and we all know what that means....a Buffy the Vampire Slayer marathon. Yes-I. (For those non-Bermudians amongst us that means "amazing", "fantastic", "yes" and generally positive exclamations). Late tonight I went to see the my friend Jesse Nolan's band Caught a Ghost concert at Spaceland in Silverlake, joined by the beautiful and talented Tessa Thompson. So today's music comes from them. Please "like" their page on Facebook . This song is 'Sleeping at Night 'and it's my favourite of theirs thus far. The video is also pretty rad, especially as I'm a little obsessed with stop-motion.