11 Weeks of Class

Week of 11/18/08: 2 Nights Out at the Theatre

This past Saturday night, my sister took me out to Manhattan for my 27th Birthday. First we went to dinner then we went to Broadway to see the performance of Hairspray. The show was great, I really enjoyed it! I haven't seen the original movie in well over 5 years and never caught the revision with John Travolta. So, seeing the stage performance brought it all back to me. Also, I am a large fan of the 60's and 70's era, so watching the entire play set in 1962 with music and wardrobe from that decade added to the enjoyment. They picked the perfect character to play the mother's character, a very well known Broadway performer... (it was a male actor!). The gift my sister gave me will be very hard for anyone else to beat this year. I love the theatre and we make it a point to go every year, it's sort of become tradition. I have seen many, many plays both on and off Broadway including Stomp, Phantom of the Opera (2x), Carousel, Mamma Mia!, Beauty and the Beast, Grease, Riverdance, A Christmas Carol, and a few others. There is something about Manhattan and the theatre experience that I absolutely love. I think it's an important part of American culture and the world of literature as well as a very important part of the New York experience. It's nice to go out to the theatre, especially now with the economy in such bad shape. Seeing so many people out enjoying a good Broadway performance proves that people still care very much for culture and the performing arts. I may miss the Monty Python Broadway performance.. it leaves the theatre in January... but I will be sure to check out Wicked soon enough.

Tonight, I went out to the theatre too but not the Broadway theatre in Manhattan. I went out to the movies in Westbury, LI. My friends and I went to see the movie, Twilight. If you haven't already read the books or at least started the books, get on the band wagon already! It's just such a captivating dark romance mixed with the twist of chick literature. I loved this movie! You must read the book before you see the movie. Expect that the book is better than the movie..... the book is always better. If you're able to put yourself into the movie and keep the pages of the book in your mind as you watch it, you will surely not be disappointed. But don't expect the entire near 500 pg book to fit into 2 hrs. The Cullen Family really is truly breathtaking...Wow! The magic between 'Edward & Bella' can be felt if you allow yourself to be lead by the book. A lot of fans are quick to judge Robert Pattinson's acting. Just remember, Bella is only beginning to wake Edward up to his emotions here in this movie so what he seems to lack in emotion is merely the character acting withdrawn, struggling with what Bella has brought to his life. I thought Robert Pattinson did a wonderful job at portraying such a hard character with conflicted emotion. This movie was great but you should probably be a Twilighter to really enjoy it. Don't miss it. If nothing else, plenty of eye candy!

For movie fans who check movie reviews online before going out to the movies, I very rarely check reviews beforehand myself, I have begun blogging at www.fandango.com under then name, Movie_Buff_27. My blog entry for Twilight that you'll find on that website is similar to my blog entry here about the movie. I have also blogged on the fandango website about the movies- Nights in the Rodanthe, My Best Friend's Girl and Changeling. I haven't blogged about every movie I've seen, my girlfriends and I hit the movies pretty much once a week on student discount night, only the movies that persuade me to speak my mind.

Vocabulary List
1. original (adj): something uncopied; something that has never occured or existed before; I used this word in my passage to discuss the first filming of the movie, Hairspray... a movie which I haven't seen in quite some time.
2. enjoyment (n): a pleasurable experience of something; gratification; I used this word in my passage to discuss my reaction to the Broadway performance and why I felt the way I did about it.
3. tradition (n): a long-established story, belief, custom or practice that takes an effect of an unwritten law; anything handed down through generations; I used this word in my passage to describe the way my sister and I treat our trips to the Broadway theatre in Manhattan.
4. captivating (vt): to capture the attention or affection of; I used this word in my passage to describe my feelings on the storyline of the book series written by Stephenie Meyer.
5. twist (vt): to intertwine two things together into one; I used this word in my passage to describe the storyline of Twilight.
6. literature (n): all writings in prose or verse; all of the writings of a particular time; all writings considered to have permanent value, excelllence of form, excellent emotional effect, etc. I used this word in my passage to refer to a "fairly new" genre in the English world.
7. entry (n): the recording of an item, note, etc; I used this word in my passage to refer to the blogs that I have started posting at the fandango website over the past six weeks.

Grammatical Structure: Can you tell what Grammar Structure I used in my passage?
**Hints***
- It is one word that is used quite often and is also the theme of the passage.
- The word is spelt the same and sounds the same but means two different things.
(Look at the bottom of the entry for the answer. Can you guess before peeking?)

Practice Exercise: Review of the Passage
1. What show did I discuss in the first half of my passage? ___________
2. What movie did I mention in the second half of my passage? ___________
3. What do the show and the movie both have in common... can you guess? _________________________________________________________________
4. Where else I have posted blogs on the internet and why? _______________________ _________________________________________________________________

Close Exercise: Review Sentences (Hint: Match with the Vocabulary List)
1. I love to cook but my grandmother always makes the _____________ recipe just right. Try as I might, I can never get it to taste as good as she can.
2. There was much ______________ in the crisp, cool Autumn day.
3. Although ___________ is strange to some families, my family is very big on ___________ and it is a big part of who we are.
4. Every male in the Cullen coven is absolutely ______________.
5. My father decided to cook and although he's not horrible at it, he sure added an interesting ________ to my mother's recipe of meatloaf.
6. I am an avid reader. I have always been sucker for great _________________. I've read all of the classics.
7. The gate was locked and _______ inside proved impossible.

**Answer to the Grammatical Structure***
The word in the passage is, theatre. This word is spelt the same and sounds the same but is used in two different ways. In the first half of my passage, I am talking about a live, old theatre with actors on stage right in front of you. Imagination is needed to make the stage set come to life with the theatre experience. There are no camera's and no film. It's an experience essential to New York. In the second half of my passage, I'm referring to the theatre as in the "movie theatre". This is a movie where the actors have been directed and recorded on film and the film is shown over a projector in an indoor showing. One is a live performance, the other is not. The word theatre works in both instances and although the definitions are similiar, they are two different definitions of the same word. This is called a Homonym.

http://www.usingenglish.com/glossary/homonym.html (learning about Homonyms)