I'm still not a well woman, but managed to keep down a really tasty brunch we had on the terrace of the Belgian restaurant at the end of our street. Mmm, crepes (actually, I had smoked salmon bagels, but Max's crepe was tasty). Our neighbour Anne had left a note on our door inviting us to brunch at her place, but I had to get to church and Mat wanted to do some sightseeing, so we passed up her offer. So I went to church while Max and Mat hit the monuments in the crazy hot sunshine. There was a baptism at church this morning and the baby was soooo sweet and slept the entire way through!
After church, I headed to the National Mall to meet the boys, who were at a big outdoor celebration of 60 years of Israel. There were lots of marquees and stages and people and hot hot heat.
By this time, lunch was a priority, so we queued for what felt like hours in the hot hot heat at the over-subscribed food tent, where Max was the envy of the seething hoards as he snaffled the final schwamma. By the time we'd eaten and wandered around a bit more, it was time for Mat to get the bus back to NYC. I was sad when he left, because as nice as our new friends are, it's been lovely to spend time with a really good friend who you know really well and who knows you really well and you're just totally comfortable with.
On our way back to the Mall from putting Mat in a cab, we saw Mandy Patinkin performing on the main stage. Max mused whether he gets fed up with people still associating him with Indigo Montoya from 'The Princess Bride', but I haughtily pointed out that he's now a Tony award-winning stage actor and plays the lead in 'Criminal Minds' on TV, so it's unlikely people would still connect him first with a movie he made in the 80s.
We wandered around the stalls some more and then came back to the main stage to see Regina Spektor perform. Mandy Patinkin came on to introduce her and, just as he was finishing, said, "Just before I go, I must confess that I'd love to hear 20,000 people [or something] join with me in saying my famous line from 'The Princess Bride'"!! So, as I hastily ate my haughty words, we gleefully joined in with, 'Hello. My name is Indigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die'. Man alive, it was amaaaazing! What a moment! Weeeeeeee!
Foolishly thinking that nothing could top that, we were promptly blown away by Regina Spektor. She came on and did an a capella version of a song we didn't know and her voice was just so effortlessly pure and tuneful. She then went to the piano and rattled through all the songs we know - starting with 'On The Radio', which she forgot the words to and had to ask the crowd for help - and a bunch of other excellent ones.
Regina Spektor on stage (tiny, on the right)
You really got the sense that she was only using about 20% of her voice and if she just let rip, the world might come to an end. She was just amazing and really nice-seeming. She played one song from 'Soviet Kitsch' that we didn't know, with this incredibly complicated rhythm - one hand was beating out a syncopated beat on a stool with a drumstick and the other was playing something completely different on the piano, then the tune she was singing had an entirely different rhythm from either of those.
'Samson', 'Better' and 'Us' were spektacular. I wish she was playing a proper venue and we could go and see her again tomorrow. I've never seen a performer quite like her - so laid back and yet so moving and pure of voice. And she liked doing weird staccato-y things with her voice, too. Suffice it to say, we stopped off at Olssens on the way home and bought 'Soviet Kitsch' (and the DeVotchKa album, which I'm really excited about).
We were also excited about the MTV Movie Awards, which we watched this evening, pleased that for once we could watch them as they happen, rather than a replay or highlights a few days later, when you already know what happens. I'm particularly excited about watching the Oscars in real time come February.
Unfortunately the MTV Movie Awards were the biggest pile of badness ever. For a start, Tim Kash was reporting from the red carpet. This was a travesty - he shouldn't even be on British MTV, let alone their flagship channel. He's soooo bad. But an ex-contestant on 'America's Next Top Model' (Kim) was the other presenter and she was really good.
Alas, we should've paid attention to the Kash-sounding alarm bells, because the ceremony was just terrible. Mike Myers was kind of presenting, but only turned up twice and both times plugged his new movie. And that set the tone for the rest of the night - everything was geared around plugging a new movie or single or whatever and it just suuuucked. And the winners were just people who turned up or had another movie to plug. So that was very disappointing.
We were excited to see Coldplay perform 'Viva La Vida' for the first time, as we already really like it from the Apple adverts (could we *be* more white, middle class and West London?!), but even that was a bit of a bust because Chris Martin obviously wrote the high bits in the song without factoring in having to perform them live while jumping around a stage one day.
Fortunately the trusty 'West Wing' is always on hand to right the wrongs of lesser TV programmes, so we gobbled up a couple of episodes of that straight afterwards.
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