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MARCH

March 30, 2013 — Marching Through March

2013 has been crazy so far, but as we hit the end of the first quarter, I thought it would be a good time to write an update on my life… especially for the growing number of you who have eschewed facebook and have no clue about my daily itineraries. So without further pre-ramble, let’s jump into 2013 so far!

IF ADELE CAN DO IT, SO DID I

I’m happy to report that the second night of my new song cycle If Adele Can Do It, So Can I completely SOLD OUT! WOO! It was really cathartic to get that show up and out of my system. I had such a fantastic cast and was so lucky to be able to put on a stellar show with super talent… It was a wonderful experience over all, and the audiences seemed to enjoy themselves. The show featured a dozen new songs, but also a dozen poems I set, as well. A lot of the material borders on art song, and I think it’s unlike anything I have ever written before… and although most of the show is sad, I promise there is some humor thrown in to alleviate the gloom!

I have put the entire show up on the youtube, and YOU should watch at your leisure, right here:

http://tinyurl.com/sethadele

Regardless, I am very proud of my work on this show, and I hope you will take the time to watch it! It’ll be less than an hour since I cut a lot of the applause and intro vamping!! 🙂

GIVE US MORE TO SEE

In other news, I am ready to write FUNNY things again. To that end, I have completed the writing stage of Season 3 of Every Day a Little Seth! It’s been so super busy, but I hope in a few weeks to start filming it, and get it up by this summer. I feel bad that Season 2 was already 2 years ago, and I know people have been clamoring for season three. I promise it will be worth the wait! (Just like Heinz ketchup.)

I have also written a 10 minute Poe musical with my neighbor this year, which unfortunately was not accepted into the Poe evening we were writing it for. But it is pretty good, and we are discussing what to do with it.

Other than that, I signed on to write some songs for a play with a musical in it. The musical in the play is called “The Final Frontier”, and is in essence a Star Trek parody musical… which is pretty much right up my alley! I have written a few snitbits from the show including the title number, the act one finale: Our Greatest Enterprise, Beam Me Up, and the love song, Yoo-hoo, Ra! I can’t take credit for the song titles, as they were given to me, but I did have a blast writing the songs themselves! I have a few more to go, and then we’ll probably do a reading of the play at some point this year.

Besides those, we are slowly getting back to work on some projects that have been in the works for a few years, and I promise I am still dedicated to getting LOVE QUIRKS Off-Broadway… We are considering just putting the CD out online for sale. We were waiting to release it with the production, but as it’s been completed almost 2 years, it might be time to open up our vault and let it live…

Additionally, I have a few new ideas that I don’t want to talk about yet, but as soon as they are more solidified, I will let you know… it is time to get back to work in 2013!!!!

AUDITIONS AND SHOWCASES, OH MY

Audition season has been NUTS this year, which is awesome. I’ve been playing many days, and it’s great to be out of my apartment! I did a 10.5 hour day with only 2 ten minute breaks in February for Strawhats… it was absolutely nuts, but exhilarating to have no down time whatsoever… and 2 weeks ago I played auditions Mon, Tues, Wed and Sat… with Thru/ Fri being my show… and I already have a full week filled in April! So… it has been pretty busy.

In other job news, this week is my 235th talent showcase.. which means that it’ll be the 250th before you know it! That means we’ll be doing another 4-5 concerts of my work with all the showcase alumni this September! The spring showcases have been pretty well attended, which is always preferable and maybe a sign the economy is starting to get better… and I have them filled slot wise all the way till 5/14… though, that means I probably should start trying to fill the rest of May at some point. Ah, it never ends!

Other than that, I have been coaching singers for auditions/ showcases still, in what little downtime I have had… but it will probably lighten up as the spring turns to summer, and hopefully let me get back to writing again.

PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE

On April 12th, I will be performing with the Essential Voices USA choir again at Carnegie Hall for Stephen Schwartz’s 65th Birthday celebration! I have indeed been practicing nonstop, and I am VERY excited to return to the most prestigious hall in the world! Choir rehearsals are really fun, and it’s great being a part of something larger that I do not have to produce myself. We are singing selections from Godspell, Pippin, Children of Eden and The Prince of Egypt among some other things, and it should be a fantastic evening… it also features Broadway stars Julia Murney, Jennifer Laura Thompson, Jeremy Jordan and Norm Lewis!

I’m basically drilling the parts every day b/c we have to be completely memorized… Back in the old days, I would be able to memorize things really quickly, but you know they say the first thing to go with old age is memory!!! And the second thing is… ugh, I can’t remember! (Yeah, that’s an old joke, but I couldn’t resist.)

#WINNING

After 15 years of puzzling, I am happy to report that I was finally on a winning team for the MIT Mystery Hunt! For those of you who haven’t known me that long, here is a site on the hunt: http://web.mit.edu/puzzle/www/

It is INCREDIBLE to finally have won after so many years of getting really close. It just proves that 2013 is the year when persistence finally pays off! So not only did we get really nice coin memorabilia for winning, now our team gets to write the hunt for next year – no easy task! Ever since we won, it’s been a barrage of emails and debates and votes, but it is really exhilarating! I am quite excited b/c I have had puzzle ideas I have wanted to write for over a decade now… I would tell you more about the process and more about what the 2014 hunt will look like, but sadly I am sworn to secrecy, and if I told you, I would have to kill you… and there are too many people on this list to kill. BUT I will give you a sample puzzle, which will reveal a secret word about what I CAN tell you about this year’s hunt:

What my Masters is in
“There’s no need to fear, ___dog is here!”
“We’ve got ___ to do!” (Song I will be singing at Carnegie Hall.)

This is a pretty simple puzzle, but I will give you the answer below!

NEW TOYS

For my birthday, I decided it was time to give into the 21st Century and get… an IPAD! That is right! I now have the capability to check my email anywhere… that there is a free wifi connection! Haha! But it’s so pretty, and I have moved a lot of my scores over to dropbox, so I can now play anything I own right off my iPad… Plus, I can play chess against the computer… and I can play Words with Friends and Scrabble through the iPad apps… and I can watch Netflix or HBO Go anywhere there’s a wifi connection, as well, like on the Bolt Bus and when I visit people who have wifi set up… and I can also download books to read on it, though I must admit I prefer actual books still… something about turning actual pages is just nicer than flipping through a screen…

Oh, and I can now SKYPE using it – so if any of you would like to SKYPE, let me know!

In other new toy news, one of my showcase regulars was given a roku by the family she babysits for when they upgraded their model… since she doesn’t have a tv, she gave it to my for my birthday! So now I have Netflix and HBO GO streaming on the TV, so I don’t have to use my computer for them, and now I can type this ledger while I have on a Back to the Future marathon… I might never leave my apartment again, but if I do, I can bring my iPad with me and feel like I haven’t left!

SMEE & HIS NEW COUSIN

You read that right… Smee has a new cousin!!!! He is very excited about it… okay, he really doesn’t grasp the concept at all, but he would be excited if he could…

Yes, it is true.. my sister and brother-in-law… have… adopted a……… new dog! His name is Jackson… He and Smee will probablyl never meet in person, but we hope to have them Skyping soon!

AUGUST VACATION

Well, it turns out that Tango’s parents are staying with her all of August, so we can no longer visit her in Copenhagen this summer unless it’s earlier, and with the 5th Annual Broadway Meows in July and FIVE weddings to go to, 3 of which are this summer, it is looking less likely I will be visiting her this summer. BUT that means I am free to visit somewhere ELSE in August… So if you would like to have me visit in August, do let me know!

I am up for anything as there isn’t much going on in August, and I would love to get out of the heat… so I guess that means I’d have to visit some place North…

A READING RAINBOW

Well, it seems the last time I wrote I was still finishing up Game of Thrones! I have finally completed reading all 5 gigantic novels, and since then I read Life of Pi, which was NOT my favorite book… and now I am 2/3 done with Jonathan Franzen’s FREEDOM, which I am greatly enjoying. Oh, and in between, I took an hour to read The Tale of Sand, which is a graphic novel based on a movie Jim Henson never got made right before he started working on the Muppets!

After that, I found Patti LuPone’s autobiography for $1 at the Strand, so I probably will read that, which will not take very long… and then I am open to suggestions because it will be quite some time before the 6th Game of Thrones novel is available.

Speaking of GOT, there is an exhibit in town for the week, and we were going to go today, but it is apparently mobbed, so we are now opting for Monday afternoon, when hopefully some people will be at “work” so it’ll be less of a crowd…

AND THE OSCAR GOES TO

I managed to see 6/9 of the Best Oscar nominees last year, and my favorite is still Silver Linings Playbook! Other than that, this year I’ve seen only a handful of flicks so far including Quartet – a really cute movie with Maggie Smith directed by Dustin Hoffman… And then I saw Warm Bodies and Escape from Planet Earth which were both cute, but nothing to rush to see… And tonight I am seeing Admission… which reminds me one of these days I need to find a copy of Bossypants to read!

The movie I am most looking forward to this year is the new STAR TREK movie in May, and I will be 100% going to the midnight IMAX showing!! Live long and prosper!

COUCH POTATOING

I am FINALLY almost caught up on Doctor Who! Well, almost. I have 7 episodes to go in Season 6, and then 5 episodes of Season 7 and 2 Xmas Specials before I am ready to watch the new episode tonight… but I hope to catch up sometime before they are finishing airing Season 7, 7 weeks from now… I think that is feasible! Other than that, I have been told by a LOT of people to watch House of Cards, so that is next on my docket… and I am going to try Archer b/c it’s on Netflix and is really short. And eventually I intend to watch Revenge. I also really want to watch Suburgatory b/c it looks funny, but the first season isn’t available ANYwhere for free… so I don’t know that will ever happen…

In other news, Game of Thrones is back this weekend! WOO!

And it seems that most of the shows I watch have already been renewed for next season… the only bubble shows I’m waiting on are Nikita, Community and Nashville… all 3 shows are so good, but the ratings haven’t been stellar, so knock wood!

LIVE AT THE THEATRE

I have been seeing a lot of plays this year. I am MOST looking forward to seeing Matilda in April, but here is what I have seen so far:

Drood – On New Years Day, a group of us went to see Drood on Bway, and ended up in the front few rows – so much fun!
Golden Boy – Clifford Odets wrote a lot of really heavy dramas, and this was one of them.
The Piano Lesson – another intense classic drama, this time by August Wilson – really great ensemble – this was when Kevin was visiting, so we saw 3 dramas in a row b/c that’s what he likes.
Picnic – this was the least dramatic of the three – a pretty enjoyable production of this classic Inge play.
Nightlife Awards 2013 – fun ceremony celebrating the nightlife of 2012… the highlight was Faith Prince and Jason Graae’s duo show…
Fiorello – Encores production of this Pulitzer Prize winning musical – such a great score by the team who did Fiddler…
Broadway by the Year 1931 – Town Hall concert reliving 1931…
Passion – FANTASTIC Sondheim revival of one of my favorite musicals!
The North Pool – New play off-Bway – pretty good.
Two by Two – MUFTI production of this old show starring Jason Alexander in the role of Noah originally played by Danny Kaye
Really Really – Really really new play off-Bway starring Zosia Mamet from Girls and Hugh Lauria from FNL…
Tally’s Folly – Another classic revival of a Putlizer winning play – this one by LANFORD Wilson – I really enjoyed this production!
Hands on a Hardbody – New Musical based on the documentary where people keep their hand on a truck for hours till someone wins… sounds kind of exhausting… you won’t see me in one of those contests!
Old Hats – BEST SHOW EVER – Bill Irwin and David Shiner’s new clown show – Bill does an entire 5 minute bit with a giant screen and an iPad, and it’s unbelievable!
Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike – Hilarious new comedy by Christopher Durang starring Sigourney Weaver and David Hyde Pierce… David has a 10 minute monologue in Act 2 that just BRINGS the house down!
Broadway by the Year 1961- another Town Hall concert, this time celebrating 1961…
It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane… It’s Superman – Encores again, reviving this really charming, campy musical about Superman… so fun!
The Big Knife – Another classic, depressing Clifford Odets play – maybe they should start reviving some comedies!
Lucky Guy – Saw Tom Hanks in this great new play about journalist Mike McAlary – the stage door was super mobbed after – even more than when Harry Potter was on Bway – guess he’s pretty popular!

SOLUTION TO THE PUZZLE

The answer word for this puzzle is the first letter of the answers:

Music Technology
Under
Magic
——
MUM! (That is word you are getting from me about the 2014 hunt!)

CONCLUSIONS

Well, I guess that’s about it. It seems the weather is slowly getting warmer, so maybe I will be able to switch to my spring jacket at some point soon! And hopefully my allergies won’t make me regret endorsing the warmth…

I hope you are doing well; please do send a note catching me up on YOUR life. And finally, a Happy Passover and/ or Easter to all!
HOPE TO TALK TO YOU SOON!!!

Always,
Seth

JUNE

June 13, 2013 — June came so soon!

I cannot believe it’s summer already! There is so much going on, so let’s get this ledger rolling!

I WANTED TO HAVE MY OWN WEEEEB SERIES…

Season 3 of Every Day a Little Seth starts airing this MONDAY night, 6/17 around 11:30pm (I’m going to post after I get back from the Bryant park movie)!! It will unspool over 6 weeks with a break for Bway Meows. The schedule is as follows:

Monday, June 17th Episode 13: Smart Phone
Monday, June 24th Episode 14: Online Dating
Monday, July 1st Episode 15: My New Apartment
Monday, July 8th Episode 16: My Favorite Holidays
Monday, July 15th Episode 17: Insomnia
Monday, July 22nd – COME SEE BROADWAY MEOWS 5!
Monday, July 29th Episode 18: To My Grandparents

http://www.youtube.com/EveryDayaLittleSeth

Watch at your own convenience, and please don’t forget to forward the show to everyone you know! And if you haven’t caught up on Seasons 1 and 2 – what are you waiting for!? (FYI, Season 2 and 3 are mostly family friendly – if you don’t like obscene things, you can skip Season 1, especially the first few episodes.)

Tune in to what people (besides myself, I swear) are calling: “THE BEST SEASON YET!”

Seriously, I am overjoyed to be back with a new season of my show, and ever since I started actively promoting it, all the old episodes have jumped up 50 views so far. So thank you for your support!

BROADWAY STARS SING FOR KITTIES

We will be back with the 5th Annual Broadway Meows: MONDAY, JULY 22nd, at 7PM. As always, the money from the event will go to the wonderful organization, the Humane Society…

I already have a dozen Broadway/ Off-Broadway stars lined up to sing my songs at Don’t Tell Mama, and will announce the full line up in a few weeks on sethbh.com, twitter and facebook, etc. We will be premiering a few new songs from The Final Frontier the Musical. And there will be some songs from If Adele (still available for viewing at: tinyurl.com/sethadele !) and of course everyone’s favorite Love Quirks songs, etc!

So save the date, and if you are unable to come and would like to make a generous donation of even a few dollars to help defray the cost of the concert so all the proceeds can go to saving kitties’ lives, please paypal $$ as a gift to broadwaymeows@gmail.com!

54 Below Debut

Last week I had the great honor of being invited to be a featured guest for a musical theatre singer-songwriter night at the new prestigious club, 54 Below where Patti LuPone just had a show! I ended up closing the night at 1:15am, which is later than I usually perform, but thankfully for once, I always have a ridiculous amount of energy after midnight.

It was an INCREDIBLE experience, and I hope to play the room again many times.

I posted the video up on the facebook as public, so you should be able to view it without an account…(https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10101962559736359)

SHOWCASING TALENT

I have booked my summer showcases weekly through August 13th right now. The 8/13 showcase will be by 253rd showcase. I am going to postpone doing a huge 250th Showcase Gala Celebration until September, but I am probably going to do 4-6 concerts of my songs (depending on interest) with 100 or so of the 850 showcase alumni (again depending on interest)…

In addition to quantity, I’m happy to say the quality of the showcases has been fantastic this summer! It’s been exhilarating to work with so many new, talented folk!

And speaking of fall, I plan to finally release the Love Quirks CD this fall, possibly in conjunction with the 250th Showcase Gala Celebration… I will figure that stuff out after Meows is over…

FREE THINGS AND PARTIES, OH MY!

I hosted the TRU Tony Party this year in the party rooms in my building, and it was fantastic fun! Not to mention getting to host a party without having to pay for anything myself. Also, I ended up winning the Tony Pool, which was $20 + 2 free tickets to a show! I still don’t know WHICH show – it’s between one I’ve seen and one I haven’t, and I said I’d hold out for the one I haven’t seen, but they are double checking about it, etc… but I will let you know in the next ledger what I ended up seeing, I promise.

I thought it was a great ceremony this year, and I am glad Neil Patrick Harris continues to host it.

One of the guests to the party brought the guy who played Mickey on Seinfeld. We talked to him a bunch; he was impressed with MY career, which is ridiculous because he was on SEINFELD…

Before the Tony party, I actually had my own mini-Memorial Day BBQ to welcome summer…

So the summer has started off to a GREAT start, and I am VERY excited for all the free things coming up: movies in the park, symphonies, swing dancing on the pier, etc! Summertime in the city has always been my favorite because there is something free to do almost every night!

SIX WEDDINGS AND A JURY DUTY

I have officially been invited to 5 weddings so far this year, with a 6th just announced that I might or might not make the invite list of… but I am definitely going to 2 weddings this summer (congrats Reji/ Audra & Matt/ Heather)! And since one of them is an early Sunday morning, I scheduled jury duty for the Thursday/ Friday before, so I will be used to getting up early for a few days, so I’m not completely grumpy for the wedding! Too bad that is not gift enough, but I am happy at least 2 of those weddings this year are happening early evening. 🙂

I am not really looking forward to jury duty, but they have free wifi there, so I will be getting paid $5/ hour to sit there and watch Netflix after I’ve napped for awhile. Last time I brought one of my travel pillows, and I will have that and my iPad this time. Plus, I was smart enough to sign up for a Thursday so if for some reason I’m kept more than a few days, I will most likely (knock wood) not hit Tuesday when I’d have to move my showcase rehearsal… or at least hopefully I will know with enough notice to scramble for a back up plan.

Regardless, I am glad to get it over with, so that I won’t have to go back till 2020! (6 years till they ask me again, plus the 1 year of postponing as much as I can.)

SMEEEEEEEEE

Smee wants you to know he is prominently featured this season on Every Day a Little Smee (as he calls it), and he really hopes you tune in to it!!!

BOOKING A NOVEL

I really loved Freedom. That is still the last novel I read. I am 75% done with Patti LuPone’s autobiography, which is a great read… most especially because she is bad shit crazy, and reading it makes me feel like I’m not! (Even though, I probably am.) After that, Melanie leant me Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris, which is supposed to be hilarious… and Rori is supposed to lend me Gone Girl… I totally forgot to take it when I was up at her apartment filming her Season 3 bits…

Yes, Rori is back for 2 episodes this season, and she is also starring off-Broadway in Showgirls! the Musical through July, and if you have the time, you should check out her new blog because it’s really quite fantastic: http://www.tracysnewyorklife.com/2013/05/the-myth-of-overnight-success.html

MOVING TO THE MOVIES

The new Star Trek movie was FANTASTIC. I LOVED it. We went to an early preview, and I got a free poster for it, which is just awesome. AWESOME movie. Other than that, I am going to see Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing tonight! And tomorrow I think I’m going to see What Maisie Knew b/c it’s based on this Henry James’ novel I picked up at the Strand and was SO convinced would make a great musical, but it has NO PLOT… so I’m anxious to see how they fixed that problem for the movie…

Besides that, I did see free previews for The Heat and The Internship. Both were funny, but The Heat was the FUNNIEST movie I have seen in a REALLY long time, and I highly recommend it. Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy have SO much chemistry. It was literally NONSTOP laughing going on!!! I can’t even keep a straight face typing about it, it was just THAT funny…

TV OR NOT TV, THAT IS NOT A QUESTION

There is no TV now that it is summer!!! But the GOOD news is that almost EVERY single show I watch got renewed for a new season! Even if some of them are short final seasons like Warehouse 13 and Nikita…. seriously, only 6 episodes?! It’s better than nothing, but they should not be canceling either of those!!!

I just finished catching up on Nurse Jackie – which ended with a bang after a pretty tame season… Mad Men as usual started out slowly, and then the last few episodes have been like WHOAAAAAAAAA!

My FAVORITE new show that I randomly started watching this spring was Orphan Black on BBC-A! It is AWESOME. And the funniest show has been Veep, and I also like Family Tree which is still airing… in other cable channels, I also have all of Rectify saved, but I have yet to start it, though it got good reviews and already has been renewed for season 2.

And other than that, Game of Thrones is over which makes way for True Blood which has been so bad lately, and Dexter’s final season. Oh, and The Newsroom is back!

I think I’m going to try the show Under the Dome for lack of other things to watch, and I think at least Hot in Cleveland is back soon. Oh, and they’re airing the last 4 666 Park Ave Saturdays starting June 22nd…

Anyway, in REALLY exciting news, I cannot WAIT for Breaking Bad to start airing its final episodes!!!!!!

Besides that, I started House of Cards on Netflix, which it starting to get better in episode 3, but still not my favorite. And I think there’s a new comedy coming out this summer by the woman who wrote Weeds so I will definitely watch that, as well!

And finally, speaking of Netflix, I zoomed through Season 4 of one of my favorite shows, Arrested Development! I know that a lot of people were underwhelmed, but I still thought this season was really great, and I liked the new format that they used (even if it was for economical reasons)… I did also visit the banana stand when it was in town… and although they were out of frozen bananas, I did get a picture with the booth and a free poster.

SHOW ME THE THEATRE

Okay, since the last ledger, here is what I have seen:

The Last 5 Years – saw the revival of this charming musical that I saw 3 times originally in 2002 – I LOVE Betsy Wolfe. Nuff said.
Showgirls! the Musical – I saw Rori in this off-off bway and then when it transferred off-bway! Lots of nudity and lots of vulgarity = BOAT SHOW!
Matilda – THIS IS THE BEST MUSICAL in YEARS. Period. It is FANTASTIC, and afterwards I went backstage to see my friend, Celia, and talked to the writer, Tim Minchin, who was just SO nice. BEST MUSICAL. GO SEE IT.
The Mound Builders – revival of an old Lanford Wilson play at Signature…
Assembled Parties – new Bway play with amazing acting from Jessica Hecht and Tony Winner Judith Light…
The Dance of Death – off-Bway revival of this Strindberg play starring the guy who played Moriarty on TNG!
Broadway by the Year 1972 – concert at Town Hall of the songs from 1972.
I’m a Stranger Here Myself – this was FANTASTIC – Mark Nadler put together some songs from the Weimar Era and tied it into his family history, and it was just a thrilling evening of theatre that was kind of a cabaret plus… really fantastic.
On Your Toes – Encores revival of this old Rodgers & Hart musical… it has ballet in it (hence the title)
Reasons to be Happy – new Neil LaBute play off-Broadway starring Jenna Fischer from The Office…
Somewhere Fun – Captain Janeway (Kathryn Mulgrew) was fantastic in this play at the Vineyard Theatre.
Venice – New musical staged at the Public theatre starring the girl from Next to Normal…
Pippin – OMG, this was FANTASTIC, too! Just UNBELIEVABLE in terms of the circus performers and the magic tricks! Talk about magic to do! And Andrea Martin singing upside down while doing acrobatics?! I mean, it’s not really Pippin, per se, but it’s quite a grand spectacle!
Broadway by the Year 1988 – final Town Hall concert of the season – they did some Phantom, some Romance, Romance… I prefer Romance, Romance.

To recap, GO SEE MATILDA and PIPPIN! NOW! Especially Matilda. And get a Tardis and go see I’m a Stranger Here Myself. And if you like seeing topless girls, go see Showgirls! the Musical, but I’ll warn you, it’s dirtier than anything I’ve written… and that is pretty dirty.

CONCLUSIONS

2013 has been great so far! And this summer is going to be the best summer ever!

Besides everything I’ve mentioned, I am still writing puzzles for the 2014 MIT Mystery Hunt (still not revealing a thing, but I suspect there will be a long email about the process after it’s all over)!

Also, I still would like to vacate the city the last few weeks of August, so if you want me to visit… let me know! Preferences to places north where it’ll not be 100 degrees! I might just randomly and spontaneously take a trip to Europe, as well. We’ll see.

Regardless, I hope you are doing well and enjoying the beautiful weather that seems to flicker in and out every other day. Send me a note to let me know you are!!!

And don’t forget to watch Every Day a Little Seth weekly starting Monday night!!!!!

Always,
Seth

AUGUST

August 9, 2013 — Where Did the Summer Go?

I cannot believe it is already almost mid-August. It has been a whirlwind, busy summer and promises to be an even busier fall… Read on to find out why!

WATCH ME PLEASE

Season 3 of Every Day a Little Seth has been a smash success with 1,163 views so far!!!! If you are not caught up, I highly recommend sitting yourself down for 55 minutes and clicking, here:

http://tinyurl.com/edalsthree

The season is comprised of things I have a huge emotional reaction to… three things I hate: Smart Phones, Online Dating and Insomnia… three things I love: My New Apartment, My Favorite Holidays (it’s an aMOOsing episode) and my Grandparents. Insomnia includes a montage of me not sleeping for a night conceived by Rori Nogee, and is HILARIOUS… plus Smee makes extra cameos in that one, too!

If you’re not caught up on Seasons 1 and 2, have no fear! Click here… then here!

http://tinyurl.com/edalsone (Reminder: Season 1 is dirty. Seasons 2 and 3 are not.)
http://tinyurl.com/edalstwo

For those of you who missed the 5th Annual Broadway Meows, sethbh.com/broadwaymeows has links to songs from the concert. We raised $315, and also had a Playbill.com photographer come to take the best pictures of us we’ve ever seen.

250th SHOWCASE GALA CELEBRATION

Showcases have gone on weekly this summer. By the end of August, we will hit 254… but who’s counting!? (Besides me…) So, this September, as usual for the anniversaries, we will be doing FIVE concerts of my work with ONE HUNDRED SINGERS! Because I am crazy. I am solidifying the details at the moment, but it should be an incredible time.

The dates of the 5 concerts are Tuesdays, 9/10 & 9/17; Fridays, 9/20 & 9/17; & Wednesday, 9/25.

In addition to that, my friend, Staci and I are doing a special Muppet Cabaret on Tuesday, 9/24 to celebrate both Jim Henson (who’s birthday it is) and Jeffrey Moss (who died on that date). There will be puppets!

Other than that, I’m putting together at least 1 one woman show with a showcase alumni… Caitlin’s show will be Friday, 10/25! I had a few other people say they wanted to do them, as well, so that should be fun.

The 5th Annual Broadway Can! concert/ can raising drive for Citymeals-on-Wheels and City Harvest will be Monday, November 18th at 7PM!

LOVE QUIRKS CD

Okay, we are finally ready to release the Love Quirks CD! I know you have all been waiting 2 years for it, and I am sorry it took so long to have the following epiphany: if we sell 5,000 CDs, we’ll have enough $$ to put the show Off-Broadway!!!

That’s right! So starting in September, we’ll be selling the CD on iTunes and amazon.com… and then after we have the CD Launch Party/ Reading, we will be selling physical copies, as well! So be prepared for many annoying emails from me begging you to buy a CD and tell all your friends… 🙂

NEW PROJECTS

This fall, we are going to do a reading of the new play The Puff which is the show that includes the Star Trek musical, Final Frontier, for which I have written 6 songs.

Also, we are FINALLY starting work on a new Broadway aimed project. I have been forbidden from announcing it in a mass email, but if you’d like details, I’m happy to tell you privately. We are very hopeful to have the show on the Broadway by 2023!

Other than that, I have another project idea for a lavish Broadway musical, which would require getting the rights to something… so that’ll probably have to wait, but I hope one day to make that happen, too. Again, privately, I’m happy to talk about it… sorry to be so secretive, but I have learned the hard way that it’s not good to reveal to much in public forums. 🙂

JURY DUTY

Yup, I made $80 for sitting in a room for a total of 6 hours of 2 days. Yes! $13.33333333333/ hour! Not too shabby… And now I don’t have to do it for 6 years. (Or 7 when I postpone 3 times again.)

I seriously think there has got to be a better system than this. They said they had all these trials pending, but that they all got settled out of court. Which I suppose is preferable to actually having to talk my way out of serving on a jury… we literally got sent to lunch early, then got out early… got told to come late, then got out completely before lunch! Easy, breezy…

Thankfully, they had free wifi, so I just sat there watching Star Trek: TNG on my iPad while doing crossword puzzles… Man, that show is still good!

SMEE’s FANPAGE

This would be a good time to announce that Smee has his own facebook page now! For Meows, he took over my account for a few days, and people remarked that they liked his statuses more than mine, so I went ahead and gave him his own page. You can “like” it, here:

http://www.facebook.com/smeekitty

He posts daily pictures like the one above, and captions them himself… that one says “Guarding this envelope with my life.” He has 125 fans at the moment, and 9 of them are complete strangers! Who knows… maybe he’ll get an instragram next?!

WRITING PUZZLES

I am having the time of my life writing puzzles! WOO! I cannot say much else, but the Mystery Hunt is coming up VERY fast… January 17, 2014!!! WOO!!

I really will have to give a really long report about everything once it’s over, but it’s probably best to say nothing besides “I am having the time of my life writing puzzles!”

I can promise that this year’s Mystery Hunt will be INCREDIBLE, though, so anyone in the Boston area should join a team! http://web.mit.edu/puzzle/www

BWAY TRIVIA

Speaking of puzzle type things, my friend and I put together a brilliant team for this Broadway Trivia event Wednesday night at 54 Below! We didn’t win, but we were only 13 points away from first place (out of 91)… and we were 7 out of 49… so that’s totally top ten! WOO! It was quite a fun night, and it looks like they’re going to start doing it monthly, so we’re going to keep trying… and we’re going to brush up on our obscure knowledge!

STATUE OF LIBERTY

This week, I played tourist for a bit… My sister and brother-in-law are in town for a week and a half, and my brother-in-law had never been to the Statue of Liberty… and actually, I have never been to the actual island either, though I’ve seen it from ferries… So we took him…
I now know an awful lot about the statue, so maybe when there’s a Statue of Liberty Trivia night, I will form a team…

T to the V

This will very easily turn into a rant about Time Warner Cable. I am very close to switching to FIOS, but I need to clear my DVR first, so I probably will wait till I’m back from vacation… but for those of you who don’t know, TWC is having a big dispute with CBS, and has decided to drop not only CBS but Showtime, too… so we are unable to catch up on Dexter!?!

Plus, I’ve had to watch my FAVORITE summer show, Under the Dome online illegally!!

BUT I complained, so they gave me Cinemax, Starz and Encore for free, and Encore had a marathon of Torchwood: Miracle Day, so I DVRed the entire thing, and I am so THRILLED to be able to watch it b/c it’s FANTASTIC (and much better than recent Doctor Who has been… but hopefully with a new doctor they’ll revamp the show…)

Other than that, I watched the whole season of Orange is the New Black, which was quite enjoyable. Oh, and I watched the HBO/ BBC show Life is Too Short which was really too short! So hilarious! Also cute was Family Tree the HBO series by Christopher Guest (Guffman, Best in Show)….

In most exciting news, BREAKING BAD is back on SUNDAY for its final episodes!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

BOOK IT TO A NEW NOVEL

I need to read more. I am on page 64 of Gone Girl, and it is great. I have been really busy. I promise to read when I go on vacation!

MOVIES

With all the summer events in the city, I haven’t been to the cinema so much… I am VERY much excited for the new Muppet movie in March 2014… Muppets Most Wanted! They just posted the first trailer from it online… Here’s what I saw in the actual movie theaters since the last ledger:

Despicable Me 2 – the sequel was really great – better than the first!
The Way, Way Back – this movie was GREAT! it’s the same producers as Little Miss Sunshine… really quite charming movie!
Blue Jasmine – The new Woody Allen movie was marvelous. Cate Blanchett was unbelievable, and will definitely be Oscar nominated.

Other than those, I kind of really want to see the To Do List… that’s on MY to do list, though I might have to wait for it to be on HBO at this rate… oh and Kick Ass 2… but again, I might wait for HBO on those… I think there’s a new Hobbit movie out soon… and Into the Woods December 2014!

THEATRE

I also haven’t seen that much theatre since the last ledger, either, but here’s the highlights:

Nobody Loves You – this was a really cute off-Bway musical about a guy who goes on a dating tv show.
Murder Ballad – we got to sit on stage on tables for this off-Bway musical and the actors were really, really close
First Date – Bway musical starring Chuck!
Violet Concert – Sutton Foster was UNBELIEVABLE in this concert version of one of my favorite esoteric musicals…
Trip to Bountiful – Cicely Tyson most definitely deserved her Tony for this production… she never leaves the stage!
I’m Getting My Act Together and Taking it on the Road – Glad to get to see this rarely done Off-Bway show…
Peter and the Starcatcher – saw this again off-Bway and it still is charming!
Soul Doctor – new Bway musical about Rabbi Shlomo Carelbach’s life… quite interesting!

CONCLUSIONS

It’s been a splendid summer, and I hope you are all having good ones, as well!

Do watch my web series please!!! Season 3 is HILARIOUS, I PROMISE!!!!

I’ll let you all know in a special update when the Love Quirks CD is available.

Let me know what YOU are up to.

Always,
Seth

SEPTEMBER

September 9, 2013 — A European Vacation

As most of you know, I spent two weeks abroad this August in Ireland and Copenhagen. What follows is a lengthy recap of the trip for those of you who enjoy living vicariously through me! For all 600 photos, you will need to get a facebook account, or visit my apartment… Well, let’s get this email started, shall we?

DAY ONE: DUBLIN, IRELAND

The trip began at JFK, where I met up with my college friend, Niki… We have been friends now for almost half our lives… it won’t end up being half our lives for another year and a half, though! We decided to take a trip together since we both had the ability to take a week off in August. We narrowed down onto Europe, and the cheapest tickets we found were for Dublin, so we figured… why not go to Ireland?!

The flight there was uneventful. It left at 7:30PM NYC time, and landed at 2:30am NYC time, ie when I’m still wide awake. So I didn’t sleep on the plane at all, but I did almost finish GONE GIRL (I ended up staying up to finish it that night)… (After Gone Girl, I read Ender’s Game, which is going to be a movie this fall, and then I am now halfway through D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterly’s Lover.)

Anyway, it was 7:30am Dublin time, and there was no way we would adjust if we allowed ourselves to sleep, so on day one, we hit the ball running and kept it running until 10:30pm Dublin time… ie I stayed up 29 hours! (Niki was up longer since she wakes up before 12:30.)

First off, people in Ireland are super, super nice. We were holding the map out very confused since Dublin has NO street signs anywhere, and at least 2 people came over to help us without us even asking. That doesn’t happen in NYC. But we found the hotel, dropped off the bags in the lobby, used the lobby bathrooms and wifi for a bit, and then were ready to start our day at 8:30am!

Our first hotel was located pretty centrally. Trinity College was on most people’s must see list, and just happened to be right next to us, so we started there. We decided not to wait for a few hours till there were official tours and just walk around ourselves… I must say… it looked like MIT, but older. We weren’t that impressed, though we did skip a room with a lot of Books that is supposed to be good.

From there, we were really close to places where Oscar Wilde (the playwright) had lived and worked. Unfortunately, all of those places no longer let tourists in, but we did take pictures outside of them… and I took a lovely picture with the Oscar Wilde statue, which started me on my taking pictures posed as statues set…

We walked around this nice park, which according to my map is Merrion Square… then we were hungry so we found this awesome pastry shop and had some croissant with fruit in it… my mouth is watering just thinking about it. We sadly couldn’t find a comparable place again all trip! But man, that first shop… YUM! It was then I saw a sign that the National Museum was FREE. Not ones to miss an opportunity to save $$, we went to this museum which was mostly art… sculptures, paintings… there were some people I’d heard of like Renoir, Picasso, Degas…

From there, we headed across the river to go to the Writer’s Museum. One the way, we passed a bunch of buildings, gardens and statues… oh my! And we ended up going past the James Joyce Centre, so we decided to check it out. This is where I learned that NYU not printing an expiration on my student ID was a huge $$ saver in Europe! I probably saved $30-40 this trip because of that. So thank you NYU!!! The James Joyce Centre was lame. I’m not going to lie in this email. It was lame. Probably the biggest waste of $$ from the entire vacation.

We passed a really nice garden of remembrance on our way to the Writer’s Museum, and we also passed another free art gallery – Dublin City Gallery – sadly, they didn’t allow pictures, and since we had been up for so many hours, I could barely tell you what was in that one at all… but I did take a lot of pictures at the Writer’s Museum… there was a first edition Dracula… a signed copy of Ulysses… some wild Wilde paraphernalia (okay, it wasn’t that wild, I just wanted to make the wordplay)… a bust of George Bernard Shaw and Samuel Beckett… I took the audio tour. It was pretty interesting, but not interesting enough for Niki to stay awake. She took a nap on a bench (in her defense it was pretty hot in there)… but it’s okay, because the next day she would drag me to a museum in exchange!

We walked down O’Connell Street, saw the O’Connell statue, and went out for brunch… which is when I learned the bacon in Ireland tastes like ham, aka disgusting. DO NOT GET BACON IN IRELAND. (Copenhagen was much better for bacon.) After brunch, we stopped by the Abbey Theatre, and then walked down the shops on Henry St…

It was now after 3, so we could check into our hotel, and then we went out on Grafton St, saw a statue of this woman Molly Malone… We found a good deal for a data card for Niki’s European iPhone, which proved a very good investment later on… [foreshadowing…]

We walked through another park and then to George Bernard Shaw’s house to take a picture of another sign at a place we couldn’t enter… then, we stopped by the Irish Jewish Museum… sadly, the Jewish Museum closed at 3:30 and we didn’t find it till almost 6. But I did take a picture outside of it… we walked across another river for a bit… then we had dinner at Bobo’s which my friend had recommended… very good burgers… At night, we went out around Temple Bar, which is the happening nightlife in Dublin… there are live musicians at every pub. We went to one with a guitar player for a bit… but we couldn’t stay out too long, b/c even though I had a full pot of tea with brunch around 1, we were both awfully tired… I would’ve gone to bed by 9:30, but I was at the end of Gone Girl…

DAY TWO: DUBLIN PART TWO

The next day, we got up a little less early (this would be the trend, especially for me, as usual), and we headed out to Dublin Castle. As this was the first castle, I wasn’t quite castled out yet… this is a castle that is still in use, so it was in pretty good shape. There were some really nice, large sand sculptures in the courtyard… this was the day it was raining a lot, so first off, I was very happy I had packed an umbrella; and second off, it was good we picked mostly inside things to see that day… Our tour guide at Dublin Castle was very pedantic, and it was kind of dry and dull… we did see a throne, which wasn’t as cool as the Game of Thrones… and we did learn that a drawing room is short for a withdrawing room, which would be the room that the men would withdraw to after dinner to have serious chats while the women went and did needlework…

On route to our next destination, we had some pizza… I think it was a slice for a euro, which isn’t bad at all… it was very tiny crust, but it definitely filled us up.

We next went to the Guinness Storehouse, which is a museum about Guinness Beer, aka the trade off for making Niki go to the Writer’s Museum. The entire museum was in the shape of a glass – it was round and the top of was a glass room where you could see all over Dublin… or would’ve been able to see if it hadn’t been raining… I got a Diploma for learning how to pour the perfect Guinness — something more useless than my atrophied Computer Science degree… we also got to smell all the ingredients of beer, and I had a sip… Beer is disgusting. I don’t know how people drink it. Dis. Gust. Ing.

After that, we thought we’d go to the Gaol Museum because it looked like it was right next door… Unfortunately, the map was NOT to scale, and it turned out to be a 20 minute trek in the rain… but it had gotten so many stars on so many sites, we felt we had to go… our tour guide’s name was Raourey, which is the Irish way of spelling… RORI. Unlike the last one, he was a fantastic guy. Very whimsical and full of knowledge – so much so that our tour kept getting bumped into by the one behind us… this prison was really old and kind of scary… it was like being on Orange is the New Black! Very interesting though, and definitely worth getting to.

We had wasted so much commuting time, that we didn’t get to go to the Irish MOMA, but since we had already seen 2 other art museums, we weren’t too heartbroken… the gardens around it was very nice, but we decided to head back to the hotel before the show we were seeing at night… at our 2nd hotel, there was a show right downstairs… it came with a 3 course dinner, so that was really yum – Irish folk singing – 3 guys, guitar, banjo and violin… very enjoyable! The mic stands in Ireland actually have a beer holder on them… they sang some songs we’d never heard of, and then out came some riverdancers… that was fun to watch… and then they ended up pulling us both on stage for part of it! So I made my river dancing debut in a little cabaret space in Dublin…

After the show, we went up to our room and planned the rest of the trip so we didn’t have to worry about booking things again… car, check; hotels, check… we were ready to see the rest of Ireland!

DAY THREE: DRIVING, BRU NA BOINNE, GALWAY

We stopped by Starbucks for some “take away” breakfast (what I would call “to go”), said goodbye to Dublin and went back to the airport to rent a car from Avis… we had been really excited to find one for only $100! Until we realized that didn’t include insurance. We almost didn’t get insurance. I can see the eye rolls, but I think insurance is a big waste of $$… however, the agent at the desk seemed appalled that we would even consider not getting it, so we gave in. $200 for insurance. TWICE the price of the car! But since stick shifts are so popular in Europe, we ended up getting bumped down to an automatic… which as Americans… was really a bump up! Not that I mind driving stick shift, but it would’ve been with my left hand, and that would’ve been weird.

Driving on the left side of the road was really hard to get used to at first, but then by the end of the trip, I was speeding like crazy, so I must’ve gotten used to it. It’s hard b/c you have to be on the wrong side of the car, and aim the car over to the right in the lane from what you’re used to while staying on the left side in general. Highway driving was fine, but the actual roads in Ireland have no street signs, no street lamps, and are half the size of American roads… I kept thinking we would end up hitting cars, esp when they were buses or trucks… thankfully, that didn’t happen, but I’m surprised I didn’t end up with nightmares those nights…

Anyway, besides that, it was hard to aim correctly for tolls – I ended up having to really reach out of my window the first time… I ended up on the wrong side for parking stubs – I actually had to open the door to get the ticket the first time (making Niki laugh really hard)… besides the tiny lanes, Ireland is full of roundabouts, which is this horrible invention, where you just go around in a circle a few times until one of you finally figures out what highway is next… only to get into another roundabout… and sometimes a third before finally getting on a highway!

Regardless, we found a great radio station – RET Lyric, which was kind of NPR-like… classical music, some jazz, some Broadway… very nice driving music! And this is where getting that data card for the phone really paid off. I cannot imagine driving in Ireland without a GPS. It was near impossible with the GPS and the map… I had a silver medal in Road Rally in the Science Olympiad in 8th grade, for goodness sake! How many MIT alumni does it take to navigate around Ireland?… TWO!

Alright, so we went to Bru na Boinne… which consisted of really nice grass hut tomb type things… We ended up right at the site thanks to the GPS only to be told we had to go to the Visitor’s Center 20 minutes away. So finally we get there, and we have to take some of the last tours b/c it’s so crowded… so we had lunch there, and saw a really lame museum including a 10 minute video in the center… we did charge the phone at least… I had egg mayo salad, which is… egg salad.

The two ares we went to were Knowth and Newgrange… literally there were huge tombs with grass on the top and engraved stones around the base… they line up during the solstice at sunrise/ sundown to glow really nicely and they lottery those tickets to be there that day… we didn’t submit since the commute is kind of long… they were really nice though, and on the top list of things we should see… anyway, we went on top… we went under… we took pictures… Ireland is very green, btw. And there are a lot of cows and sheep around…

While we were there, I ended up chatting up these American guys, and it turns out they live by Boston, and one of them was a pianist/ organist at his church… and their favorite spot to hang out in NYC is… Don’t Tell Mama! Only I would go to Europe to run into DTM regulars!

Since it took us so long to get through those sites, we ended up not being able to do much else, so we went to where we were told there was nightlife… Galway! Unfortunately, we had major trouble finding parking, so by the time we got out, we were harried to find a place still selling dinner… we went through Eire Square and then down the quay where there was a throng of people… it’s kind of like there’s one strip that resembles NYC, and the rest of the city is just dead. We were in the Latin Quarter and found an Irish restaurant… I had beef lasagna…

Galway was definitely a very happening college town. Sadly, we are too old for that sort of thing, so we retired to our hotel, 20 minutes away, in Kirvanna… when we got there, there was a honky tonk dance party going on since it was Saturday night… apparently our hotel was the place all these elderly locals come to dance up a storm. It was quite a site!

DAY FOUR: BURREN, CLIFFS OF MOHER, DOOLIN, KIRVANNA

Day four we tackled some more MUST SEE locations of Ireland! We drove all through Burren which is this really cool mountain area with lots of rocks and random flowers growing out of rocks… we took a lot of pictures… then we went to the Cilffs of Moher, which is one of the greatest wonders of the world… they were used in The Princess Bride as the cliffs of insanity! It was really breathtaking, and very relaxing… Niki had some epiphanies about her life… we walked some of the paths for awhile before turning back… got pretty close to the edge… it was probably the highlight of the Ireland trip…

After that we drove around the cute town of Doolin… went on the beach there… had some local fudge… we took the coastal trip back, so it was really scenic and idyllic… again, lots of more pictures… we went back to our hotel in Kirvinna… stopped by the Dunguaire Castle even though it was closed for some Medieval Times type event we didn’t feel the need to spend 48 Euros on… we found an Italian place in town and had some pizza… mine had aubergine on it… which is the European word for eggplant.

DAY FIVE: ROCK OF CASHEL, BLARNEY CASTLE

After free breakfast at our hotel (scrambled eggs on toast… Niki got a full Irish breakfast which had a lot of disgusting meat on it… and black & white pudding which wasn’t pudding at all!?!), we set out for the Rock of Cashel.

On the way, we passed Tipperary… so it wasn’t really a long way there after all!

The Rock of Cashel was pretty nice. By this point, we didn’t even want a free guided tour, so we walked around the ruins of the castle ourselves… Then we saw some demolished building down this hill, so we went down and checked out the Hore of Abbey… which is different than an Abbey Hore…

Next, we headed South towards Blarney… we had some navigational issues, but eventually we made it, with plenty of time to spare! Blarney Castle was AWESOME. It was a very hyped location, so it was good we planned to go on Monday b/c it probably would not have been so fun if we had to wait hours to kiss the Blarney Stone. Kissing the actual stone wasn’t that exciting, and I hand sanitized like crazy after… it’s supposed to give you the gift of eloquence… but I kind of already had it, so I don’t know if it gave me any additional eloquence… (not to be confused with ELEGANCE… we were BORN with elegance!)

The grounds around the Blarney Castle are awesome. There was a fern garden, some waterfalls, some old buildings… we went to the Wishing Steps in the Rock Close, and we had to go up and down the steps with our eyes closed to get our wish… but we did it, and I’ll let you know if it comes true! Other than that, there was a really cool dungeon under the castle, but we were dressed too nicely to crawl and see where it let… the trees were monstrous around the area… and there was a really nice lake. We spent hours just walking around the grounds. Very relaxing!

Afterwards, we found a pub in Blarney with free wifi (making up for the last hotel) and we just completely zoned out into our internet… it’s important to take a break from vacation sometimes! Then, we headed to our hotel just outside of Cork.

DAY SIX: KILKENNY, WICKLOW NATIONAL PARK

For our last full day in Ireland, we decided it would be a good idea to just relax and sleep in. We took until noon to get out of the room and kept our to do list to just a few things. First, we spent the afternoon in Kilkenny (you bastards!) where we found a charming cafe… we went to the supermarket b/c Niki is obsessed with checking out different prices in various countries… then we headed to Kilkenny Castle, which was probably the lamest of the castles we saw on our trip… so we didn’t linger too long.

Then, we took off for Wicklow National Park… we ended up driving through the mountains on a very scenic view, and even got really close to some sheep. The view at Wicklow was breathtaking! We took a nature trail and then hung out by the lake where I took an hour to write up notes for this very email!

Most things were closed, but we managed to find this really nice pub; even though the kitchen was closed the bartender/ owner, made us some food anyway. So nice people in Ireland are! We then went to the airport to return the car… and we took a shuttle to the Hilton for our last night…

Ireland was greener and friendlier than we had thought… fewer redheads, too! Niki turned out to be the perfect travel companion, and I’m so happy we got to spend a week together! Neither of us wanted to kill the other after a full week together – how many of you could spend a week with me and say the same thing?! Also, we have culinary tastes in common – no Asian food – no seafood… and we have low tolerance for guided tours, and breeze through musuems in record speed without a second glance to most things… Plus, we are both extremely good at directions, which was very important for Ireland. I do not recommend driving in Ireland unless you are good with maps and invest in GPS. Even then… beware!

DAY SEVEN: IN FLIGHT TO COPENHAGEN, DENMARK

Niki had an early flight, but I slept in. She was nice enough to leave me some breakfast from the free breakfast I missed sleeping past 10. I sat in the hotel lobby for a bit with free wifi on my iPad, and then I headed to the airport, where they also had free wifi! What would I have done without an iPad?! I also was in the middle of Ender’s Game, which I finished one night in Copenhagen… Very relaxing 2 hour flight on aer lingus (which sounds dirty, but I swear it’s the name of the airline)… and then I was in COPENHAGEN!!!!

One of my best friends from grad school recently moved to Copenhagen to be with her husband… Tarang and Carsten were the BEST HOSTS EVER! They came and picked me up, and taught me all about how to use the Copenhagen subway. They also had an extra room for me, which was awesome! And they provided breakfast and lunch and even dinner most nights…

The Copenhagen subway is really only 2 lines, and then a bunch of commuter trains. They are completely different types of trains, but they all run in the same system. You check in with your cards and then you check out at every station you’re at… half the time the conductors don’t even check, but apparently if they catch you not paying, they charge you a fortune… so it’s an honor system, but it’s probably better to play it safe. Since I was only there for a bit, I had a 10 zone ride card, which I had to punch at the start of each journey – I did get checked a few times, but probably b/c I was going to far away places…

The trains were pretty nicely labeled, and there is a huge bike area b/c taking your bike on the train is very usual since everyone in Copenhagen bikes. Upon exiting the station, I saw a sea of bikes all lined up for their owners to come off the subway and ride them home…

DAY EIGHT: CASTLES and MERMAIDS

Since Tarang and Carsten work normal job type things, I was on my own for Thursday/ Friday days. Thursday, I took an adventure around to see the 2 famous castles… Kronborg, which is also know as Hamlet’s castle b/c Shakespeare set Hamlet there… and Frederiksborg, which is a really fancy castle with art galleries, etc. Neither castle was close – I had to go to the further zones – I did 3 punches each of 3 ways going in a triangle… neither castle (or SLOT in Danish) was particularly close to the subway, but I managed to get to both of them okay b/c there is far more signage in Copenhagen than Ireland…

Hamlet’s castle was older and creekier… I took a guided tour around since I was on my own… Shakespeare never went to the castle but he had heard all about it from some people, and apparently you can do Hamlet in the castle itself and it works perfectly. The most disturbing fact I learned about the Danish royalty is that it was common practice for feasts to be bulimic so you could eat more… kind of gross. Also someone was married to his 14 year old cousin, but I think that’s common all throughout Europe history… and West Virginia?

The Frederiksborg Castle was really nice, but by that point I was pretty castled out. The gardens surrounding it were also fantastic… however, I needed to get back home for dinner so we could get to see some sites before dark since Copenhagen has NO STREET LIGHTS…

We walked past the museum I wanted to go to… it was about the WWII resistance and told the story of saving 3200 Jews from the Nazis… BUT it burned out a few months ago… so I was 0/2 on Jewish museums this trip.

We did make it to the Little Mermaid statue, though, which is the number one tourist spot… even though it’s just a statue…

DAY NINE: THREE MUSEUMS AND TIVOLI GARDENS

Friday I got a late start, but I was determined to still get through all 3 museums on my to do list. Besides, I was pretty museumed out at this point, so I knew I wouldn’t be lingering… the weather was really nice and then it wasn’t… and then it was… and then it wasn’t. That’s when I learned that Copenhagen’s weather is more mercurial than someone really indecisive… ?

Anyway, I went first to the National Gallery of Denmark, which was more art… mostly Danish… though there was some other European art including Matisse and there was a Picasso… there was also a modern floor, after 1900, and there was an actual art exhibit that was basically a hospital room with mannequins – I got really creeped out and left that room very quickly.

Next I went to the National Museum of Denmark, which was much larger and took 3 times as long to get through… but I did make sure to get to every single room, I promise! There was a Viking exhibit, which was pretty cool… they had an actual Viking ship… this museum was really dark and really hot, for some reason…

Danish museums are so well structured. The order was evident – every room was numbered, and it made the most logical sense to just go to every single room in number order! What organization! Also, they had automatic doors everywhere! Some of the rooms were jampacked with things in cases, and no labels… but then after awhile I noticed they had an iPad type thing in each room where you could look up any piece on display in Danish or English! Unfortunately, I wasn’t in the mood to read anything, but it was nice to have the option… my favorite rooms were the Toy Exhibit b/c I am 5 years old… they had toys throughout the years, and a dollhouse exhibit…

The third museum I went to that day was the Museum of Copenhagen… Tarang and Carsten were actually featured in an exhibit on Objects of Love on the top floor! (Something I forgot to mention about Europe besides their weird adapter sizes is that the first floor is always the “ground floor” so the 3rd floor is floor 2, and the 2nd floor is floor 1… so annoying!) The museums also had a sign that said there were 3000 Jews in Copenhagen still… well it was 3001 for a week!

Around 4:30 (Danish people go to work early and get out early), they joined me post-work at Central Station, which basically resembled Grand Central Station… then we went to Tivoli Gardens! Tivoli has really nice gardens, restaurants, rides and even an outdoor theatre! We saw this 15 minute Modern Dance show, and went out to an Italian restaurant, where it started pouring inside for about 5 minutes. Thankfully, our table wasn’t under the leak, but it was funny to watch others get wet… (SCHAUDENFREUDE!) I didn’t feel like spending $15 on a rollercoaster, esp when they make me ill anyway… but we did get really good ice cream, and we stayed for the Friday night concert series (which they considered crowded, but was not even half of the turn out for a Bryant Park movie)… we saw Tina Dickow, a Danish singer-songwriter… she wasn’t bad, but I was annoyed at the fact that we were surrounded by smokers. How horrible to allow smokers in a crowded, outdoor space like that!

DAY TEN: CHRISTIANA, WORLD FOOD FESTIVAL

Saturday, we took it easy. It was rainy out for awhile, and then gorgeous! Carsten’s cousin leant me a bike, so we biked around the city, which was really fun. Biking in Copenhagen was far less scary than driving in Ireland. In fact, biking is so popular. I saw people with bikes with childseats… or wagons for children… parking was a nightmare, as well… and there are bike lanes everywhere. The only weird thing about my bike was it used back pedaling to brake, and I have gotten used to handbrakes… but I adjusted soon enough. It reminded me of when I used to bike all over for hours in junior high school before I got a car/ license…

We went to Christiana, which is its own country… they don’t let you take pictures in there b/c there are so many people doing drugs in the open… they also have no taxes. In fact the rules were: “Have fun! Don’t run! NO PICTURES!” Apparently, if you start running, you’ll cause a panic b/c people will think cops are there… It was a really nice place with a pretty lake, but it was very smoke filled from all the drug use, so I was glad to be back in the EU afterwards.

Then, we went to Smag Verden, which is basically foods of the world… this international festival that was in town for the weekend! They had some international singers (not so great) and food from all over the world. I stopped by Israel to say Shalom, but ended up getting a quick meal with falaffel, hummus and a salad = I tried to be healthy some of the time. Afterwards, we biked through some of the really nice gardens Copenhagen has to offer and took our time getting home since we weren’t going to be hungry for dinner till late anyway.

Rather than go out to see more nightlife, after a long vacation, I instead opted for a night in catching up on The Newsroom. By some miraculous coincidence, Tarang and Carsten had only watched the first 2 episodes of the season… the exact number I had gotten around to before I left for vacation! So we were able to watch 5 episodes together over the course of my trip! That is more of a vacation in my mind than going out to a bar where I’m not going to drink anyway…

DAY ELEVEN: CHANGING THE GUARD, BRUNCH, DEGAS

Sunday, we got up and out to see the changing of the guard at the Copenhagen royal palace… it was kind of uneventful. It seems to be there must be a more efficient way to do it that doesn’t involve such a spectacle… After that we went to a really nice place for Danish brunch… speaking of brunch, the method of using a credit card is different – instead of signing a check, you put your credit card into a slot type thing, and type in your pin to pay… Brunch was very filling and included eggs, (good, non-Irish) bacon, fruit, cheese, bread, pancakes and a delicious strawberry-raspberry smoothie…

After brunch we went to the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, which was another art museum… however, this time I didn’t have to go alone! They were featuring a Degas exhibit that happened to be closing that day… so we got to see a lot of Degas, but sadly they didn’t let us take any pictures. My summary of Degas is this: Dancers and Bathrooms. Basically every picture was either a young dancer or a naked woman in a bath or a toilette… or going from bath to toilette… or going from toilette to bath. Sample titles were: 2 seated dancers, dancers at rest, dancers practicing in the foyer, Woman going to the bath from toilette and woman going from toilette to bath… I kid you not. There was also a statue of a 14 year old dancer which is apparently pretty famous.

Besides that, there was a lot of sculpture and some French paintings… there was a sculptor named H. W. Bissen, who pronounces his name pretty much how we pronounce ours… so maybe we’re related to him in some way? There was also a Egyptian section, where there was a sculpture of the God Seth… I always knew I was named after a deity!

Finally, we biked through city hall, and I took one final statue picture (for all my pictures, please go to my facebook page) with famous author, Hans Christian Anderson.

DAY TWELVE: A LONG COMMUTE HOME

I woke up at 8:30AM Copenhagen time (2:30AM NYC) to find out there a strike at the airport of security guard workers! WHAT?! And I was on Delta’s last flight back to NYC of the season!? So I got to the airport, and it was PANDEMONIUM. Nothing was open; nothing was moving. I met some people on my flight while we were all just hanging out hoping they wouldn’t leave without us, and it turns out that I knew one of their cousins! Because the world cannot be any smaller.

Anyway, thankfully they settled their strike (something that never would’ve happened in the USA) really quickly, and by 10:30 we were moving slowly through what the sign said was voted the best airport security in the world by millions of people. Well, not by these people. They decided to hold the flight till 12:30 (it was supposed to be 11:30) so even though we all sprinted, we ended up just sitting around for even more hours doing nothing…

Thankfully, the plane ride wasn’t that eventful, and by some miracle I even fell asleep for a bit (it helps that Iron Man 3 was boring – sorry fans of Iron Man). They also showed the new Star Trek movie again, which is funny b/c the 2nd time I saw the first new Star Trek movie was on the flight back from Shanghai! Okay, maybe that’s not that funny. Regardless, I made it through the 8 hour flight, through customs, through the commute back to my apartment, and managed to catch the last opera in HD of the season at Lincoln Center, Aida! So I only stayed up for 23 hours this direction, and slept in, woke up bright and early Tuesday at 11, worked straight for 14 hours before bed… and I’ve basically been doing things nonstop since then!

But I am happy to check this trip report off of my list! I had a fantastic vacation. Most sincere thank yous to Niki, Tarang and Carsten for making this trips one of the highlights of my life. I feel refreshed, renewed and ready for the fall… speaking of:

IN OTHER NEWS

1. Have YOU finished Season 3 of Every Day a Little Seth yet? tinyurl.com/edalsthree (Only 100 people watched the finale!?)
2. 5 concerts of my work featuring 80 singers for the 250th Showcase Gala Celebration will be: 9/10, 9/17, 9/20, 9/25, 9/27
3. Staci & Seth Sing Sesame Street – special Muppet cabaret, 9/24
4. Over 100 submissions so far for Oct-Dec showcases, #260-272!
5. Love Quirks CD Release party, TBA really soon!
6. 5th Annual Broadway Can! 11/18
7. Only 3 Breaking Bad left and only 2 Dexter left?!?!? WHAAAAAAAAAAA, speaking of:

TV shows I will try this fall: Marvel’s Agents of the Shield, The Goldbergs, The Tomorrow People, The Crazy Ones, The Michael J. Fox Show… Anything else worth trying?

L’Shana Tova to all, and best wishes for a successful fall!

Always,
Seth

OCTOBER

October 27, 2013 — An Attempt to Title This Without Referencing the New Love Quirks Cast Recording Fails

First off, if you did NOT receive my European adventure email about my trip to Ireland and Copenhagen, it probably went to your spam folder. Please email me for another copy, assuming this doesn’t go to your spam folder, again! I have been having issues since gmail upped their spam requirements, so please let me know this got to you. I am sending it from sethbh@sethbh.com instead of seth@sethbh.com, but it all goes to the same place.

Second, off if you read no further, this ledger is brought to you by the letters L and Q, as in please buy the new Love Quirks Studio Cast Recording, and then tell all your friends to buy it, as well. Thank you.

Without further pre-ramble, I bring you your regularly scheduled ledger now.

EVEN WHEN LOVE WORKS THERE ARE ALWAYS LOVE QUIRKS

It is time. I am done waiting. I am moving Love Quirks Off-Broadway in 2014 by sheer will. To help with this, we are donating all the income from sales of the recording to mount the show. The more we sell, the fewer investors we need, so won’t you please buy a copy right now?! Please? 🙂 Here’s the link for iTunes, but it’s also available on amazon.com and cdbaby.com:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/love-quirks-studio-cast-recording/id722012962?ign-mpt=uo%3D4

I am VERY proud of this recording. I think it captures the show, and I think the cast sounds incredible. I’m sorry we held it in our Disney vault for so long, but I had the epiphany that we could use sales to fund the show, rather than just advertise for it. So, here we are. We are planning to do a CD release holiday party, so we will have physical CDs available around Hanukah. If you want to order one of those instead of buying it online, let me know. They will be $20 with shipping included.

We plan to do an industry reading of the show at the start of 2014, and intend to open the show Off-Broadway in 2014 no matter what. And I’m even declaring that here, so you know i mean it! But it’ll be more likely to happen if you buy a copy of the cast recording, and tell everyone you know to buy one!!!!!

It takes a village to make a dream come true, and when it does it’ll be partially thanks… to YOU!

CAN WE GET SOME CANS?!

While I’m up here in the promotional section, I should tell you that the 5th Annual Broadway Can! concert for City Harvest will be Monday, November 18th at 7pm! We have 24 Broadway/ Off-Broadway stars lined up, and it’s going to be EPIC. I actually think it’s going to be the best concert we’ve ever done, and I have such conviction in that statement that I’m putting a few of the stars on this distribution list so they know how much I appreciate them participating in this concert!

At the moment, we are premiering 3 songs, a few from the new play The Puff that has a musical called Final Frontier which I have written the score for. We are actually doing a mini-reading of the show in December, with plans to do an industry one early 2014. But I am thrilled that some of the songs will be making their debuts… and… and… and… I wrote myself a new opening number to premiere! Wha?! So don’t miss out, and reserve now at donttellmamanyc.com!

Here are links to some press articles about the concert:

http://playbill.com/news/article/183464-Russell-Fischer-Nina-Hennessey-Emily-Klein-Michael-McGurk-Brooke-Sunny-Moriber-Brian-Charles-Rooney-and-More-Set-for-Broadway-Can-Concert?tsrc=nx

http://www.broadwayworld.com/article/5th-Annual-Broadway-Can-Set-for-1117-Featuring-Klein-Sunny-Moriber-More-20131021

SHOWCASES, AUDITIONS, COACHINGS, OH MY…

I have actually been extremely busy this fall, which is not a complaint, just a statement of fact. The showcases for some strange reason have become exceedingly popular, so I ended up adding an extra 5 over the next few months. As most of you know, we just had the 250th Showcase Gala Celebration in September, but by the end of this year, I will be hitting… 275! Which means, we’ll probably have a huge 300th Celebration, fancy name TBD, by May or June. Just in time for the 6th Annual Broadway Meows in July…

Regardless, I’ve had a great turn out this year and have gotten to showcase many talented new musical theatre singers this fall. I also produced and accompanied for a sold out one-woman cabaret with one of my showcase regulars Friday, and I’m happy to announce there will be the premiere of a puppet in one of the December shows…

Other than that, it might as well be spring the way auditions have popped up this October. Three weeks in a row of playing for theatres – one from TN, one from AZ and then next week it’s a company from IN, and also the Scooby Doo Live! National Tour. (That company is actually based in Australia, so we now know the answer to the question of where Scooby actually is.)

Between lots of auditions and showcases, I’ve been coaching for both frequently, as well. So it has been a productive fall to say the least. (And that is about the least I can say, I’d say.)

SPOOKTACULAR HALLOWEEN

I’m having a great Halloween so far. My first experience with costumes actually was a few weeks ago when I went to Comic Con for the first time! It was kind of like a Star Trek convention… but much bigger. My friend had an extra pass, so I figured… why not go? I went to 4 panels including Felicia Day (who I met after and got to sign a picture from Doctor Horrrible’s Sing-Along-Blog… btw, if you have not seen it yet, go to netflix right now and watch it!!!), B. J. Novak (the joke that landed him his job writing for The Office was: “I spent 4 years in college, and learned NOTHING. But it’s my own fault b/c I double majored in Psychology… and Reverse Psychology.), Robot Chicken (Seth Green, Macaulay Culkin, et al) and a panel about Jim Henson’s biography including the author (who signed my copy), Prarie Dawn (she gave us directions to get to Sesame Street), and a lot of the people who knew Jim very well, including the designers of Fozzie and Piggy.

Besides that, I walked around for a few hours seeing a throng of people everywhere, massive amount of elaborate costumes and much dorky merchandise… by the end of the day, I had found a free t-shirt, a free flashlight and a free poster.

In other Halloween news, I went to the Haunted Horseman’s Hollow in Sleepy Hollow a few weekends ago. It was SO awesome. Very scary. Everyone in my group screamed at least once. The trick is they wait for you to be completely engrossed in something eerie or icky, and then when you turn around they’re waiting in costume unexpectedly… It ended with a tight corn maze where they would grab at you sporadically. Quite a good time!

As usual, I have been dressing up as a cow… for the 8th year (see Episode 16 of Every Day a Little Seth for a plethora of cow puns!)… however, since I was at Bourbon St after the show the other night, I accessorized my cow suit with some beads b/c I was going to MARDI GRASS!!!! (Because cows eat grass. It’s usually Gras. Okay, everyone got that now…)

IT’S A PUZZLEMENT

How I wish I could talk more about the MIT Mystery Hunt that is less than 3 months away, but I am so sworn to secrecy!! But when it’s over… I will be doing a whole episode of Season 4 about it… speaking of, I have been brainstorming for it, and I think I’m going to try some new things for the 4th season of Every Day a Little Seth… set to premiere sometime summer 2014! I have 4 solid ideas for episodes, so I just need 2 more…

Regardless of secrecy, I am really quite excited for the hunt, and I love writing puzzles. I mean, I guess I always have – I remember in 7th grade writing puzzles for the Hammarskjold Middle School newspaper… ran by Mrs. Dubisnky! I wonder how she is doing. I also wonder why I can remember her name without even blinking when I can’t remember the names of people I met last night…

For those of you who don’t know what the hunt is… here is a page that will explain it in copious detail in case you can’t wait until the season 4 premiere:

http://web.mit.edu/puzzle/www/

SMEE ON THE FACEBOOK

Smee is up to 154 followers on the facebook! You can become one of them by clicking, here:

https://www.facebook.com/smeekitty

(While I’m on the subject of the facebook, you can like the Love Quirks page, here https://www.facebook.com/pages/Love-Quirks/122257257853382 ! BUY THE CAST RECORDING PLEASE!)

Smee is good. He is sitting right by me as I type this… He is turning SEVEN this December! My baby is SEVEN!?!? He is entering adulthood… Regardless of age, he still runs around like a crazy kitten… he also enjoys taking daily pictures and updating the world on his latest bags, adventures and nap spots. Lately, he’s been promoting my CD for me, which is really nice… though, I guess I saved his life a few times and feed him daily, so it’s a small price to pay. Yesterday, he actually started petting me when I woke up. Very weird. Maybe he’ll be feeding ME soon?

A NOVEL IDEA

Reading wise, I finished Then We Came to an End, which my friend liked and leant me… but I didn’t like it much. Probably b/c it takes place in an office, and I’ve never been in one for a long period of time. Though, I do like The Office. But anyway, I’m about halfway through Lady Chatterly’s Lover right now, which is much better prose. I quite enjoy reading books that got banned places… And then I started Jim Henson’s biography which is fantastic and a must have for any Muppet fan!

After that, I am flexible. I also just borrowed Matilda, so I’ll probably read that b/c it’s really short… I have a huge stack in my closet of books I got at the Strand, so eventually I will get through them all…

FILMING IT IN

I really haven’t seen any films since the last ledger unless you count the London production of Merrily We Roll Along that they broadcast as one of those one-night only Fathom events last Wednesday! The production itself was fantastic, but the filming of it left a lot to be desired… yet, I’m glad I went b/c it was nice to be in a huge room of Sondheim fans including some of the original cast from the show.

Other than that, I am going to see Ender’s Game (which as you’ll remember from the last ledger I read in Europe), Gravity (b/c I hear it’s really good, and don’t want to just pay for one movie and NOT hop into something else), the midnight showing of Catching Fire (The 2nd in the Hunger Game series)… and then probably 4-5 movies on Annual Movie Hopping Day (12/25) including Saving Mr. Banks and probably the 2nd Hobbit movie… and whatever looks either funny or Oscar-nominational… (That rhymes with Muppetational! Speaking of… Muppets Most Wanted comes out in March 2014 right after my birthday!)

TEE TO THE VEE

Alright, so I tried a lot of the new shows this fall, and I actually kept quite a few of them! Though, the truth is I still prefer the old shows, and you can tell that by the fact those are the ones I always watch first… But here’s what I have kept:

The Blacklist, The Tomorrow People, The Crazy Ones, The Michael J. Fox Show, Trophy Wife, Agents of the SHIELD (it started off slow, but is FINALLY getting better), Mom, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine… so 8 new shows this season stuck! Not too shabby. The ones I stopped watching were Hostages and Sleepy Hollow, plus I didn’t bother to try anything that got horrific word of mouth/ reviews… In cable news, I still intend to try Masters of Sex and Hello Ladies but since they’re on Demand, I will probably wait till I run out of new tv for the season, around late December.

Netflix wise, I still have 2 episodes left of Top of the Lake, which I sadly didn’t finish before new TV commenced… and they put up the entire series of Don’t Trust the B in Apt 23, so I can finally watch the final 8 episodes!!!! I HIGHLY recommend that show if you’re looking for something funny. It’s only 22 episodes – it’ll go very fast, but it’s so cute!

THEATRE

Lady Day – Off-Bway musical about Billie Holiday
Bad Jews – Fantastic play Off-Bway! Go see it!
Romeo and Juliet – Saw this Off-Bway, not on, starring the Olsen twins’ younger sister…
Broadway Unplugged – Another great year of singers without mics at Town Hall
The Landing – Kander’s first musical w/o Ebb, Off-Bway at the Vineyard – cute, quirky vignettes.
Old Friends – Off-Bway play starring Lois Smith & Betty Buckley – very good.
The Winslow Boy – Went opening night to see Roger Rees in this old British drama.
Fun Home – FANTASTIC new Musical Off-Bway at the Public Theatre – FANTASTIC. Best thing I’ve seen this season!
The Fantasticks – Won tix to see this at the Bway Flea Market – I hadn’t been in about 10 years – but I was able to trade for when my friend, Rita, was on, so it was great to see her – she is in the cast of Bway Can! PLUS she’s on 3 episodes of The Following this season (I might catch up on Netflix)… which means I am TWO degrees away from Kevin Bacon now!
Little Miss Sunshine – going to see the musical version of this this week…
Small Engine Repair – seeing this off-bway play on Friday…

Other than that, there is a lot I want to see this fall, including Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan in Waiting for Godot and No Man’s Land. I want to see A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder which is supposed to be great… and I want to see The Glass Menagerie starring Cherry Jones and Zachary Quinto… Then there is a ridiculous amount of shows to see in the spring, but hopefully some people with take me to things for my birthday (cough, cough)! 🙂

Most exciting, though, I’m going to an evening at City Center called A Bed and a Chair: A New York Love Affair with will feature jazz restylings of Sondheim songs by Wynton Marsalis starring Bernadette!!!!!! I’m so excited b/c I haven’t seen her performing in person in awhile… That is the Saturday before Bway Can! so it’ll be nice to relax before it’s time to raise some $$ for the poor!

IN CONCLUSION

Busy fall = happy Seth! It’s been a remarkable 2013, and I have nothing but higher hopes for 2014.

I will ask you one time more to please purchase my new cast recording… and then tell your friends to! Remind them with their help, we can finally get Love Quirks Off-Broadway. Thank you for all your support. I am quite fortuitous to have you in my life.

And… what are YOU up to this fall? Please respond to let me know. And let me know if there is anything I can do to help YOUR dreams come true.

Always,
Seth

DECEMBER

December 30, 2013 — Re: Capping the Year by Recapping the Year

Well, it’s that time of the year again. The time for re-captions and re-solutions! As this is the final thing on my 2013 to do list, I left it to the almost final day. (In truth, tomorrow I will have to start the 2014 to do list to get a headstart on the year.) So let’s get on with it!

2013 TOP TEN ACHIEVEMENTS

1. I produced, emceed and accompanied 59 shows at Don’t Tell Mama this year. This beats last year’s record of 47 by a dozen.
2. Included in those shows were 2 performances of a new song cycle… (tinyurl.com/sethadele)
3. The 5th years of Broadway Meows/ Broadway Can!… (Videos at youtube.com/sethbh42)
4. And 5 concerts of my work for the 250th Showcase Gala Celebration.
5. We released the Studio Cast Recording of my hopefully soon-to-be Off-Broadway musical Love Quirks! (on iTunes, amazon or cdbaby)
6. I wrote, performed and edited 6 episodes for Season 3 of Every Day a Little Seth which is the best rated season yet (youtube.com/EveryDayaLittleSeth)
7. I wrote 8 new songs for a Star Trek parody musical, along with a handful of other little projects and a new opening number for myself about my TV addiction.
8. After 15 years of puzzling, I was finally on the winning team for the MIT Mystery Hunt!
9. For over a decade now, I have supported myself as an artist in a city that is increasingly making it harder to subsist as one.
10. I went on a fantastic European vacation. (If you didn’t get that email, the recap is here: https://www.sethbh.com/ledger2013.html#sept)

2014 RESOLUTIONS

1. Get Love Quirks Off-Broadway.
2. Write another musical.
3. Beat the record yet again by doing over 59 shows at Don’t Tell Mama.
4. Write, film and edit 6 more episodes of EDALS for Season 4, summer 2014.
5. Make even more connections.
6. Continue to be a loyal friend to the connections I already have.
7. Help others whenever possible.
8. Lose weight. (My diet of doing nothing to change my diet or exercise habits doesn’t seem to be working.)
9. Take more Smee pictures.
10. Come up with more resolutions so that the number is an even 10.

PUZZLES, PUZZLES, and more PUZZLES

I cannot put into words the excitement I feel knowing that I will be helping to run the 34th Annual MIT Mystery Hunt in less than 3 weeks!!!!! WOOOOO! Expect the next ledger to finally reveal many secrets, as well as links to the puzzles I crafted myself. Until then, you can learn more about the hunt at the 2 links below, so I can stop answering the question: “What is the hunt?” I think it would be a great invention to have some sort of device that answers all the questions I get from people who don’t understand the things I do (ie my whole career)… is there an app for that? (Speaking of iPhone type things, Samidh owes me $5 when I still don’t have a smart phone in exactly 12 months and 2 days, as per the bet we made in Jan 2010 that I wouldn’t have one in 5 years.)

http://web.mit.edu/puzzle/www/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mit_mystery_hunt

I DO, I DO IN THE SKY

So I ended up going to only 3 weddings this year, but it was still a record… so much so that I have collected my thoughts on such things and will be doing an episode of weddings in Season 4 next summer… other episodes will include one on the Hunt and one on the craziest gigs I’ve had over the years… and one on social networking. Oh, that means I only have 2 more to pick. I have a couple of other ideas, but I think I can say without hesitation that it will be the best season ever!

Back to weddings, I was going to include some pictures, but whenever I do that spam filters take my email away, so instead, I have updated the picture page of my webpage for the first time since 2010… the me page, Smee page, celebrity, family and friends 2010-2011 and 2012-2013 pages all have 228 new pictures up (to coincide with my birthday being 2-28)… https://www.sethbh.com/pics3.html

The wedding I went to since the last ledger was Michael and Norah’s. It was a Quaker ceremony, but we didn’t quake at all. Instead, they asked us to talk about them for a bit or share a poem, so I wrote them a limerick that was well received.

MY SEVEN YEAR OLD KITTY

Can you believe it?! Smee turned seven a few weeks ago! SEVEN!?

Is this the kitty I adopted?
Is this that little cat named Smee?
I don’t remember growing older?!
When did he?!

So we threw him a great birthday party where we played Cards Against Humanity and he played with his new ribbons that were on all the treats people brought for him. Nicole also got him a laser pointer, but it didn’t work, so she went back to the store and called the company, and now he will have 2! It pays to be assertive.

As always, for daily pictures, visit http://facebook.com/smeekitty !!

A HOLLOW READ

I finished Lady Chatterly’s Lover just in time for it to be a Jeopardy answer! Then, I read the entire Divergent trilogy b/c there was an ad for it at the Hunger Games movie, and it looked good.

The first 2 books were pretty good, but the THIRD BOOK WAS HORRIBLE. You have been warned.

Then, I read Matilda and was surprised to see how they added some extra subplots to the musical for some reason. It was a very quick read, but I really like Roald Dahl now and should probably read the rest of his books at some point.

I watched Beautiful Creatures on HBO and enjoyed it enough to invest it the quartet of those books. I also hear good things about the Legend Trilogy, but I haven’t bought that one yet.

Then, I need to get back to Jim Henson’s biography; it’s actually very enjoyable, but nothing can replace the addiction of supernatural or fantastical dystopian futures.

VISION FOR TELLY

I had the ultimate privilege of going to a taping for Season 2 of one of my favorite shows, Inside Amy Schumer!!!! Amy Schumer is HILARIOUS, and we got to be there for the standup portion of the show. She intersperses it amongst her sketches kind of like how Jerry and Louie have some standup in their episodes… so if you watch season 2, you might see us in one episode laughing up a storm! Very exciting. Season 2 is back 4/1, but Comedy Central replays the 10 episodes from Season 1 on Saturdays!

This week with most shows on hiatus, I watched the entire first season of Masters of Sex, and it is one of my favorite shows now.

My DVR is down to 39%, and by the end of the hour should be even lower once I finish this great documentary of Marvin Hamlisch that was on PBS last week…

Special mention to 2 shows that ended this week: Treme and especially Nikita which is one of the best shows ever. Once season 4 is on Netflix, you can watch the whole show there, and I highly recommend it. Very sad to see it go.

This week Community is back, and I am SUPER excited for Season 5!!! I think everything else I watch is about the same as the last time reported, so also back soon is Lost Girl and there’s a new Scfy show called Helix we might try…

Also on my list of things to try are Almost Human, Hello Ladies, Getting On and The Following. We’ll see how much of those I get done before most of my regular tv shows are airing again.

MOOOOOOOOOOOOVIE PICTURES

This year on Annual Movie Hopping Day, I saw 4 movies, but since the last ledger I’ve seen the following:

Ender’s Game – pretty good adaptation of the novel
Gravity – HORRIBLE MOVIE. DO NOT SEE THIS FILM. I don’t know HOW it’s on Time’s top 10 list! IT IS SO BORING, UNREALISTIC and STUPID!
The Book Thief – pretty good movie, but I hear the book is better, and I need to get a copy.
Hunger Games: Catching Fire – FANTASTIC adaptation of the 2nd novel… if you haven’t seen HUNGRY GAMES: CATCHING FIR, youtube it!
Frozen: the BEST Disney movie in YEARS!!!!
6 by Sondheim – I’m putting this in the movie section. This was a brilliant documentary on HBO about Sondheim. So fantastic.
Philomena – Judi Dench can do no wrong. She is GREAT in this movie. Really, really great movie. The best non-animated one of this list.
American Hustle – this one also underwhelmed me. Some great performances, but it was really predictable and too long.
Inside Llewyn Davis – this was my favorite of the final 4, but it was a little depressing even if it was quite realistic. But there’s a really cute cat!
Saving Mr. Banks – I wanted this to be better than it was, but I felt a lot of it was Disney-fied. Emma Thompson rocked though!
The Hobbit 2 – Better than the first one, but still too long, and it added all this stuff that isn’t in the book. The 3rd one will probably be amazing, though, as they end the 2nd one right at the climax. (No comment.)

This New Years Day a bunch of us are going to see August: Osage County (and maybe hop into Her… that sounds dirty, too)… and a special shout out again for Muppets: Most Wanted opening March 21st!!!!

WHAT COULD BE SWEEETER THAN THE THEEEATER?

Here’s the live theatre I’ve seen since the last ledger:

Annie – I got comps to see it, so I went for Faith Prince, who stole the show!
700 Sundays – Billy Crystal’s autobiographical play about his parents is WONDERFUL. I cannot recommend it more highly.
La Soiree – This was a really fun circus burlesque show… I got called on stage, and I can’t describe what happened to me in family friendly terms, so I shan’t.
Becoming Dr. Ruth – The mother from That 70’s Show plays Dr. Ruth, and it was really fascinating to hear all about her unique life.
The English Bride – Saw one of my Broadway benefit regulars in the title role. She was a tour-de-force!
A Bed, A Chair, a Love Affair – Bernadette was in this jazz evening of Sondheim songs. I could see her perform every day forever.
Big Fish – Musical adaptation of the book… very nice visuals.
Domesticated – Enjoyable play starring Jeff Goldblum and Laurie Metcalf about political scandal…
Nothing to Hide – FANTASTIC hour long magic show directed by Neil Patrick Harris… My mind was BLOWN!
A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder – CHARMING new musical comedy on the Broadway. Absolutely fun and highly recommended!

I still need to see Glass Menagerie, Waiting for Godot and After Midnight before the spring starts and adds even more shows I need to see like Hedwig starring Neil Patrick Harris, Bullets Over Broadway, Bridges of Madison County and If/ Then…

LOOKING FORWARD TO LOOKING FORWARD

So happy new year, everyone! I hope 2014 is the best year for everyone. I am looking forward to it, and I hope you are, too.

Always,
Seth