Whoa, Milo

I have lots to say, and school has been very busy lately. Today was the first day of auditions for the spring musical. Last year, you might remember, I had my first experience with musical theatre, assistant-directing Les Mis. Well this year I was asked to be the lead director! It is quite an honor and I'm pretty excited about it. It will also be an enormous amount of work. I decided I wanted to do sort of the anti Les Mis, so we're doing Footloose. I wanted something fun, upbeat, etc., and Footloose seemed the perfect choice. Anyway, auditions started today. I know this will be a fun experience, and I'm sure I'll be posting more about it.

Next . . . I don't really have much to say about the State of the Union. In the past I have live-blogged it, but I wasn't really feeling that this year. I think it was a good speech--short on specifics as they always are, but well done. I think that Obama has done a good job lately on focusing the scrutiny onto the Republicans--as though to say, "Ok, you have some power now," knowing thy they'll have to deliver and bear some of the burden.

And Michelle Bachmann is a grade A nutbag. That's me elevating the dialogue.

Next . . . The Oscar nominations. I have to hand it to the Academy this year: those nominations are pretty spot-on. My own Top 10 list pretty closely matches the Best Picture nominees (my list will be posted this week), and the acting awards are good choices too. This year I had actually seen all 10 of the Best Picture nominees before the announcement, so I feel good about that. I still need to see a few acting performances, but I did well this year.

And back to politics . . . If you've followed the Chicago mayoral race and the whole Rahm Emanuel nonsense, then you might guess I have an opinion. I do. Rahm has every right to be on the ballot, and the Illinois Supreme Court absolutely the tight decision overturning the lower court ruling. And Rahm will be an awesome mayor. He will kick asses that need to be kicked. I'm proud to be casting my vote for him next month. Plus he lives down the street from me.

Ok. I'm blogging on my phone from the train, listening to the new Iron & Wine (more on that later). As I said, my film list, plus my album list, will be posted soon. I am also going to see The Decemberists on Friday, so that will cap off a good week I hope.

A week which may also contain the Snow Event of the Decade. Blizzard warnings abound.

Well, as I started to say, I'm using my phone to blog and I'm getting sore text thumbs. Stay tuned.