Summer in earnest

The weather's been relatively warm lately: maxima hovering around 32. The last couple of days have been a bit warmer still: I think we hit 38 today, which is extremely warm for Cambridge. I've been getting up a little earlier because it's more pleasant to travel to campus at 8:30 than at 9, and I've stayed rather later than usual to take advantage of the air conditioning here.

Last Tuesday I escaped the heat by going to Cape Cod with Kelsey, to see the College Light Opera Company perform Call Me Madam. The show ranked relatively low on my "quality vs expectations" scale, while still proving enjoyable. I thought the acting of the lead actress was rather weak, and her singing was too harsh for my ears - though perhaps appropriate: I am not used to shows whose characters are American. The lead baritone was excellent, and most of the supporting characters were quite good. The trio of congressmen were brilliant in their comic roles, stealing the show when they were on stage while not detracting from the main storyline.

I would like to say more about the storyline and why I found it interesting, but experience tells me that would make this post less, rather than more, popular.

Jordan, Su Yee and I celebrated Bastille Day by playing Guillotine, a game that came up a few more times in succeeding days.

On Friday I went with John to see the MIT Shakespeare Ensemble's Six Characters in Search of an Author (like MITGSP, the Ensemble usually ranges away from it's titular author for summer shows). It was an interesting, enjoyable and well-presented show. I'm sure post-modern scholars will claim it says a lot philosophically, but I simply enjoyed how it was enjoyable acting while presenting somewhat of a commentary on the craft of acting.

On Saturday afternoon, I went to a Tech Catholic Community barbecue, where I played bocce, played on spools, and ate yummy food.

I continued the playing - though of Cranium, not on spools - and eating yummy food at a dumpling party celebrating Su Yee's birthday.

On Wednesday evening Ben and Melissa visited to play games: Bang (one of Patrick's I've been wanting to play because we haven't yet, as we rarely have enough people), and Space Alert, a team game based on putting together actions to repel aliens given just insufficient time to plan properly.

I've also been reading "Devil in the White City", a non-fiction book about an architect and a serial killer in Chicago around 1890.