A Day of Contrast

Well, I woke up bright and early at 11 am this morning and then zapped two pieces of leftover pizza.   I then hoped in the car and drove back into town for an interesting night.  Sally and I took off to go see the Trans Siberian Orchestra and they were amazing as always.  The first hour and a half to two hours they play their slower music that tells a story about Christmas.  They play a few of the songs they are well known for every few songs but for the most part they are calm songs with very graceful light shows.  Then they introduce the band and some of the crowd that hasn’t seen them perform before leaves. Little did they know, TSO just uses the first hour and a half for a warm up.  They then play all their up beat and pretty much turn into a rock concert.  Their lights start going crazy with lasers shooting out of everywhere imaginable.  It is always worth seeing them and I would recommend their show to anyone that wanted to go to a concert. Even if you don’t like their music, you will be more than entertained with their over the top light and pyrotechnics show.   Taking the videos I have filmed off of Sally’s camera has proven to be more difficult than anticipated so  I will try to get those videos to work and post them tomorrow so I can share a little of the experience with you.

After TSO it was another battle to try and get onto 94 E.  You would think they would put a few on ramps next to the on ramps for 94 W, but they don’t.  We drove for about 20 minutes to find out how to get back onto 94 E when we had to make a 7 pm movie show time.

We finally figured it out and arrived at St. Catherine University to watch a Deaf movie titled Gerald.  I had wondered for the past few days what a Deaf movie would be like or what they would make it about.  Lucky me today was my day to find out.  First thing I noticed at the movie was that none of the movie previews had sound. There wasn’t any: talking, music, background noises, nothing.  After the first couple preview I realized the movie hasn’t even started yet and accepted the fact that this would probably be a really, really, really, long 2 hours.

Turns out I wasn’t completely correct on my assumption.  Yes the movie was very silent but the audience on the other hand made up more than plenty for the sound the movie wasn’t making.  There were people: crinkling pop cans, flicking pop tabs, laughing, and shuffling around.  The heater would even make a strange hissing noise and then some loud clicks every time it turned on.  Also the movie started out pretty slow but then we were introduced to Gerald. Gerald was an elderly deaf man with autism and was always ready to make the audience laugh.  Once I got into reading the subtitles I started getting into the movie.  I don’t want to say anything to spoil the movie, but if you ever want to see a deaf movie for the experience, I would recommend watching Gerald.  Even though it is a very quiet hour and forty five minutes it is an interesting movie. I would give it 7 out of 10. Sorry but the trailer does not have subtitles.