Brentano String Quartet

I like classical music, but I hadn't been to see any live for awhile. I saw that the Brentano String Quartet was going to be at the Williams Center for the Arts at Lafayette College and thought it would be great.

It was. They were fantastic, and I liked the pieces they chose to perform. There's something different about hearing classic music in person. You can feel the music. You experience the music in a way that you don't with a recording or watching on tv. I enjoy watching opera on tv, but I have been moved to tears in person.

I got my ticket at the last minute so there weren't many seats left. I was up close and personal! But in this case it would've been better to be farther away. That didn't matter, though. I was there to listen. This was my first time at the Williams Center, but I'll be back.

Doctor Who: The Ambassadors of Death

The story starts with a spaceship. Earth lost communication with its Mars astronauts, but here they come! Also, this:

What the heck is going on here?? The Doctor took the console out of the TARDIS? How? Also, note that the console has a light green tint. That's a holdover from the black and white days. It made the console look white on black and white screens.

They lose contact with the recovery craft sent to meet the Mars ship. All kinds of shenanigans ensue, and the mystery deepens. They retrieve the recovery craft, but when they open it, it's empty. The Doctor thinks that the astronauts are on the Mars craft still in orbit and that what came down in the recovery craft is alien.

This story is too long and a mess. I know why I didn't remember it now.

THE RUNDOWN

Doctor: Third
Companions: Liz Shaw
Episode: #53, "The Ambassadors of Death," seven parts
Adversary: aliens and Carrington

Classic Lines: the Doctor, after hearing the Brigadier is at Space Control and still peeved about what happened in the last story: "And the Brigadier thinks it's his business? Oh well, I suppose he's got to do something to occupy his mind now that he's blown up the Silurians."

Tuck This Away to Impress Your Friends: Corporal Benton has been promoted to Sergeant Benton, as he's usually known to Doctor Who fans.
Next Up: "Inferno"

Manhattan fish chowder

I prefer New England clam chowder, but Dave likes the not-as-good version, Manhattan clam chowder. I found this recipe for Manhattan fish chowder in the cookbook Fresh Flavor Fast from Everyday Food. I left out the bacon but made the rest as the recipe said.

I thought it tasted okay. It was like Manhattan clam chowder but with chunks of fish. It did have two cups of clam juice in it. Dave didn't like it at all. I guess I won't be making this again.

Doctor Who: Doctor Who and the Silurians

Wait. "Doctor Who and the Silurians." What?! As any good Who nerd will tell you, his name isn't Doctor Who. They don't do story titles like this. They won't do a title like this again. What happened here? I don't know. Weird. So the story starts with two people in a cave being attacked by a dinosaur-looking creature. Then it cuts to the Doctor working on Bessie. Hooray! Bessie is the 3rd Doctor's car. The Brigadier asks the Doctor and Liz Shaw to come help him with an investigation into an atomic research center built into caves. They're having unexplained power drains on their reactor, and UNIT has been brought in to figure out what's going on.

Bessie!

So the Doctor drives them there in Bessie. It turns out that if one of these power losses happens at the wrong time, the reactor would turn into a giant nuclear bomb. Oops. There's plenty of fishy stuff going on. The Doctor says everything leads back to the caves and goes exploring.

Hee!

Mini-Godzilla starts to go after him, but then there's a musical sound and it leaves. I forgot how funny the 3rd Doctor can be. Liz Shaw and the Brigadier are worried about him and are gathering a search party to go into the caves. The Doctor walks into the room and says, "Well, this all looks very exciting. May I come, too?"

He tells them about the dinosaur creature. They all go into the caves, but the Doctor isn't happy that this is turning into a military operation. One of the soldiers gets attacked by the dino and shoots something else...there's a trail of blood. They analyze it and it's reptilian.

The Doctor says that the soldier was irresponsible; he was being attacked but that's not who he shot. The Doctor points out that each time there was an attack, the dino was called off. He thinks there are two types of creatures living in the caves- large ferocious ones and smaller, intelligent ones that may not be hostile. Oh, and here's the head scientist sneaking off to talk to those intelligent creatures.

Meanwhile, that injured creature is roaming around causing havoc. The Doctor and Liz snoop around the head scientist's office and find a globe of the Earth as it was 200 million years ago before the land masses drifted apart and notes on the Silurian era. Hm. I think it's interesting that we don't see any Silurians until the last seconds of episode three. We see their claws or their outline blurry in the distance, but we don't get a good look.

the Doctor and a Silurian

It's quintessential Doctor that when he meets the Silurian, he extends his hand in friendship. He wants to know what they want and how he can help. The Silurian hears a plane fly overhead and runs out the door, while the Doctor yells after him that the humans will destroy them if they don't say what they want. The Brigadier and the Doctor fight about the Brig's plan to invade the caves and the Doctor goes exploring again, this time with Liz. The Silurians are draining power to revive their species from hibernation.

The same arguments going on above ground are happening below. The Silurians fight about either studying humans or killing them all. Meanwhile, the Doctor tries to make peace with the Silurians.

They say Earth is their planet. They dismiss humans as apes. A small planet was approaching and they calculated that it would draw off the atmosphere, destroying all life. So they built the base underground to wait it out. The Doctor says their catastrophe never happened- the planet became the Moon. (Scientists don't think that's how we got the Moon anymore, but I guess that was the prevailing theory at the time.) The Silurian says that their hibernation circuit was faulty and didn't wake them up until a new power source appeared- the nuclear reactor. Anyway, the Doctor thinks there's room for both civilizations on Earth. Otherwise there will be a terrible war.

The Silurian leader agrees to try for peace. We know that's not going to happen, right? We know human nature only too well. There's already a hysterical person topside calling for the extermination of the Silurians, and there are Silurians who want to kill the humans.

This story has a pretty sobering end. The bad Silurians are tricked into hibernating again. The Doctor thinks he and Liz Shaw are going to come back the next day to start reviving them one by one, to reason with them. As they're leaving in Bessie, they see explosions in the distance. The government has ordered the Brigadier to destroy the Silurians. The Doctor comments that it's murder. They've wiped out a race of intelligent beings. They drive away in silence.

THE RUNDOWN

Doctor: Third
Companions: Liz Shaw
Episode: #52, "Doctor Who and the Silurians," seven parts
Adversary: the Silurians

Classic Lines: the Doctor: "It was certainly some kind of dinosaur. It was certainly nothing that I've ever seen before."; security chief: "In museums, you mean?"; the Doctor: "No, I do not mean in museums! Well, on second thought, perhaps, perhaps I do." *sly look at the Brigadier*

Tuck This Away to Impress Your Friends: This story is the first time we see Bessie, the 3rd Doctor's car.
Next Up: "The Ambassadors of Death"

Gettysburg

We went to Gettysburg last weekend. It was pretty neat, although it started out meh.

We drove around following the auto tour route on the park map. At first it was pretty much the same. Open fields. Woods. Cannons. There are monuments from each state and also monuments to different military divisions and various people dispersed throughout the park. When we got to the second half of the auto tour, I was more familiar with the sites so it was more engaging. For instance, here's a statue of General Webb looking over Little Round Top.

General Alexander Webb

I like how they placed it so that he's looking down from the top of the hill. Here he is from the front.

We also saw Civil War reenactors at Little Round Top. I thought we would see more than we did. They were pretty cool, and Dave had his picture taken with a Union aide-de-camp. As we were driving around, I saw small monuments for all the other states but not for Pennsylvania. I kept saying "Where's Pennsylvania?!!" Oh, here is Pennsylvania.

Our state had the grand daddy of all monuments!

Cool. Toward the end of the day was saw where Pickett's Charge occurred.

Here is where the tide turned for the Union. From those trees, a line a mile across of 12,000 men approached the Union lines behind this stone wall. A fraction of them made it to the wall, and soon after the Confederates were retreating from Gettysburg. Here more than anywhere else, it was hard not to stand there and try to imagine what it must have been like that day. How horrible it must have been. Loud noises from cannons, gunfire, and the Rebel Yell. Smoke. Friends and enemies dying all around. War is a terrible thing.

We ended our day at the cemetery, where Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address. Alas, I forgot my phone in the car, so I don't have any photos to share. It ended up being a nice day and worth a trip if you live nearby.