Ready Freddie

THEY ARE THE CHAMPIONS: Yesterday, I finally got to see a movie I've been looking forward for darn near 10 years, "Bohemian Rhapsody," a biopic about the legendary band Queen. 
The movie had been started and stopped repeatedly over the years, with changes in script, actors and directors. Finally, miraculously, they finally made it work. 

We were all ready for the film, including Annabelle, who was sporting a custom-designed Freddie Mercury meets My Little Pony shirt.

We were in our seats a few minutes before the 7 p.m. start time. And we were surprised to find our seats were in the very first row. Hmm. ... Definitely not the seats I reserved on line, but we were happy to be there nonetheless. Nothing wrong with a 4-foot Freddie Mercury and band mates. 

CJ's thoughts on the film are following. It includes a couple of spoilers. You've been warned. ;)

Queen is (or was, depending on who you ask) a rock band from London, England. Queen's records are estimated to have sold around 200 million units worldwide, making Queen one of the best-selling music groups in the world. On 1 November 2018, Bohemian Rhapsody (a biopic named after a famous Queen song of the same name) make a "sneak-preview" premiere in multiple theaters, followed on the next day by a standard theater release. I saw Bohemian Rhapsody at Cinerama (a local movie theater) on 1 November.

Bohemian Rhapsody covers Queen's existence from their evolution from the band Smile in 1970 (with obscure animator and model maker Tim Staffell on lead vocals instead of famous singer Freddie Mercury) to Queen's iconic performance at the Live Aid charity concert in 1985. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the film took some liberties with Queen's history (for example: The film seems to jump straight from the release of Queen's self-titled debut album to the release of Sheer Heart Attack, seemingly ignoring Queen II.) Freddie Mercury is played by actor Rami Malek, who took the place of Sacha Baron Cohen (best known for starring in Borat) after Baron Cohen left production of the film.

And here's what Annabelle had to say. ...

"Bohemian Rhapsody" is a bio-pic about Freddie Mercury, and more generally the band Queen. It tells the story of how the band got together and rose to fame, concluding with their performance at Live Aid in 1985. The movie details how Queen began as a band named "Smile," playing various local pubs and bars before their lead singer quit. Freddie Mercury, still going by his family name "Bulsara," joined the band and they began touring a larger area before finally selling their van for money, so they could record their first album as Queen.

Queen became popular very quickly, quickly getting record deals and releasing new hits. However, when their current agent refused to release "Bohemian Rhapsody" as a single, they split from him and hunted for another producer, where Bohemian Rhapsody was released to terrible reviews. Nonetheless, it became a hit among the public, making Queen a legend in the rock scene.

Sadly, as more and more rumors surrounded the band and Freddie Mercury (particularly about his bisexuality), the band fell out of favor and Freddie Mercury left to work on solo albums. During this time, he also contracted AIDS and was dumped by his fianceé Mary, sending him into a depressive state. Thankfully, the approach of Live Aid gave him motivation to rejoin with his bandmates for one last performance at Wembley stadium. Soon after, Freddie Mercury died of AIDS and left his entire estate to Mary, a foundation being named after him dedicated to searching for a cure. Queen songs continue to be some of the most consistently popular tunes, and as evidenced by the fact this movie exists the fanbase is still quite large.

And what did I think of the film? I was happy that the movie made me happy. It wasn't maudlin at all. Yes, they took some liberties with the timeline and other facts, but it didn't pretend to be a documentary, so it is what it is. I look forward to seeing it again.

The Day After

SUSHI TO GO: Above is what our dining room table has looked like (to varying degrees) for the past few days. We craft a birthday bulletin board for a learning center every month, and this month we went with a sushi theme. Why? Well, we've been playing a lot of one of our favorite card games, "Sushi Go," and we just love the artwork featured in it.

So, Annabelle and I drew a bunch of cute little sushi, and CJ helped cut them out and glue them. (They are mostly ink drawings on paper, mounted to foam to give them a 3-D look.)

The three posters in the top middle of the mock up will actually go above the far part of the conveyor belt. 

As I write this, friends are actually doing the install at the school. Can't wait to see the finished product.

NIGHTMARISH: The 'treat' CJ wanted most this Halloween was not candy, or chips, but a gruesome creation from Burger King.  Called the Nightmare King (photo from Burger King below), it features a beef patty, a chicken patty and bacon on a green bun.

 And so, we stopped and got him one on Monday. He thought it was the BOMB.

Fortunately, the green bun was not as emerald as it was in the BK ad.

PARTY TIME: Yesterday afternoon, we attended a Harvest Party at the kids' former school. CJ and Annabelle got a few treats, but mostly they worked the event. :)

Annabelle stayed busy by running a face painting booth all by her lonesome! I was impressed by how quickly she worked and how open she was to painting whatever kids asked for.

R2D2 and Clippy did go up on stage at the end of the party to participate in the annual "Thriller" flash mob. That's always so much fun to watch.

Come trick or treat time, CJ and Annabelle went around to a couple dozen businesses in the White Center neighborhood of Seattle. There were three places passing out full sized candy bars. The kids were most impressed. :)

For posterity, I have to include a video of Annabelle's costume. Stills don't do it justice, because you can't see her rolling like R2, and the slide whistle ups the fun, as well.

Halloween, Space Style!

     Photo: NASA SDO, 2014

We had a fun (and super busy!) Halloween here on Earth (photos from that tomorrow). Meanwhile, let's see how others are celebrating Halloween.

This time of year, this fantastic photo of the sun (above), taken by NASA's Solar Dynamic Observatory back in 2014, makes the rounds. It looks like a Jack o' Lantern sun!

More recently, in orbit today, Halloween was celebrated by an international crew on the International Space Station. 

Russian cosmonaut Sergey Prokopyev played an interstellar Elvis, European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst was Darth Vader on high, and NASA astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor dressed up as a mad scientist. Photo credit to NASA/ESA/Alexander Gerst via Twitter

Lots of workplaces have pumpkin carving contests. No surprise that NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory takes it to a far out level. ...
https://www.space.com/42296-nasa-jpl-pumpkin-carving-contest-2018-photos.html?utm_source=notification

Bohemian Rhapsody

MUSIC LESSON:  We are soooo looking forward to the new Queen biopic "Bohemian Rhapsody." We'll be seeing its first showing in Seattle, on Thursday night (11/1/2018), at Cinerama (the late Paul Allen's lovely theater).

The band is like no other. CJ and Annabelle have had the good fortunate of seeing them perform with their original guitar player, Dr. Brian May (also an astrophysicist, by the way!) and original drummer Roger Taylor. Basssist John Deacon tapped out when frontman Freddie Mercury died.

I've seen Queen with Freddie (lucky me!) and without (not so great with Paul Rogers), and really fun  with Adam Lambert.

But there's only one Freddie, which the biopic (ten years in the making) will surely show.

I stumbled upon this video with Brian May breaking down the song "Bohemian Rhapsody." It's an amazing music lesson!

Rollin'

CATCH UP: It's been a whirlwind here at MPA. Last Friday was our wedding anniversary. We spent part of it picking up an arcade table from a local business we frequent. The table had quit working and Christian had fixed another one like it for them before, so he was asked to lend a hand again. He and CJ worked on it. There were lots of problems, from shoddy wiring to a non-functioning coin mechanism. Christian rewired pretty much the whole thing and found a $10 part to take care of the coin issues. We returned the table last night, better than new.

Saturday, we attended a family reunion in the afternoon. It was nice to see relatives from California, the Carolinas, Idaho, and other Washington cities all in one place (a lovely old home on Queen Anne). After that fun, were off to the University District, for our monthly Teen Feed service. 

It was busy, as always. I barely remembered to take one picture. Annabelle was in her R2D2 Halloween costume. It actually came in handy, because she's wearing Heelys, which are rollerskate shoes, so she was able to roll around the dining room quickly, clearing tables and bringing dishes to the dish washing room. The diners got a kick out of her outfit.

SPORTY: We have been watching World Series action. The Red Sox were the best team in baseball this year, and that carried on over into the Series. They pretty much killed the Dodgers, 4 games to 1. We did see some World Series history, what with game 3 being the longest game in the history of the event. Eighteen long innings. It was the only game the Dodgers won.

Speaking of baseball, we watched part of a Library of Congress video about their baseball collection, called  Inside Baseball: Collections as Data

One thing I learned from the video was that country singer Charley Pride was a professional baseball player. I had no idea! He was a pitcher for the Memphis Red Sox, among other Negro League teams.  Pride, now 84 years old, is a part owner of the Texas Rangers, and reportedly still trains with them every spring. Who knew?! Below is an old baseball card with Pride's picture.

Earlier this year, Sports Illustrated published a cool story about him in, calling him "Country Music's Jackie Robinson."

ARTSY: Annabelle continues to participate in "Inktober," a month-long drawing exercise where she has to produce one ink drawing per day, often with a semi-spooky theme.

She has been posting her pictures to Instagram nightly. You can see them on her profile
https://www.instagram.com/spooked.unicorn/