달도 차면 기운다

It's too bad my romantic evening with monshu didn't work out last night. Friday was the Autumn Moon Festival, but I had a subscriber concert with Renée Fleming (of which more anon) to go to. I guess the pan-Asian celebration at the Lake of the last two years hasn't had the success the organisers wanted since they didn't hold it this year, so Mozhu and I decided to have our own little observance. In the end, this was grabbing sandwiches from a Vietnamese shop and eating them on the rocks as we watched the orangey moon rise over the waters. I can't imagine how much more gorgeous it must've looked the night before when it came just after sunset rather than half-an-hour later.

We were supposed to head over to monshu's for moon cake, but she chills easily, so I lead her back to my place for hot tea and we ended up staying there, eating leftovers, and talking. Meanwhile, monshu was off to meet Nuphy, ottr4bear, and Rubeus (who had basically hijacked this evening then complained that I wasn't there when it had all been my idea!) for a dinner date that turned out rather disastrous. I was quietly relieved not to have been dragged alone in the end, but I felt disappointed for monshu who goes out rarely enough that bad experiences resonate for a long time.

So instead of feasting with him and toasting the harvest moon with ginseng wine, I went for a tranquil walk along the beach and got in touch with some friends I haven't spoken to in a bit. (One had had a fascinating experience with an eccentric cabbie the night before which he promised to tell me all about.) I thought about the moon and what it represents to me, how its constancy embodies the best things about my relationship at the same time that its changeability hints at the impermanence of emotional ties of any sort. The title of this post is a Korean saying that I haven't found a good English equivalent for, along the lines of "Even if the moon is full, it's waning" or "The moon is full, thus it's waning".

Thé et gâteau ou la mort!

I got a special surprise from the DVD of Eddie Izzard's Dress to Kill last week: Eddie in French! I guess when BBCAmerica broadcast the concert, they cut the French-language encore as something too recherché for US audiences. But that wasn't all! The disc also had an entire performance en français from his Parisian tour. His pronunciation isn't bad for an Englishman, and between his unharried diction and a general familiarity with the material, I found I could understand almost everything he said.

I've got to hand it for him for having the brass bollocks to perform in a language he's not completely fluent in. Several times, he would stop to ask his audience for grammatical correction and clarification. I knew how he must have felt. That is, I knew how I felt trying to hold the attention of listeners who hadn't paid cash money to hear me mangle their mother tongue and that was pressure enough. My respect for him is now deeper than ever. Vive la travestie executive!

Confidential to e.

The Mets are pond scum!