Evenings out
Feb. 28th, 2025 04:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lauradi7dwI did go to the Kpop concert on Tuesday. I had a mess-up with timing, so I spent the afternoon in Arlington Center. I read all of the graphic novel https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/199797432-hungry-heart at the Robbins library. Then I spent a while in the Mind's Eye yarn shop in its current location where the Papa Gino's used to be (previous Mind's Eye location was in Porter Square). Spent a long time admiring yarn and chatting with the workers about K dramas.
There were positive aspects of the concert. It wasn't quite sold out, so I had empty seats around me in the balcony
I don't know about downstairs, but upstairs masking was at about 20%. Light stick use was higher. The fans were very enthusiastic. I was disappointed -if one is there to hear people sing and watch them dance, I don't want the bass (instrument) cranked up almost to distortion, and I don't want decorative colorful lights shining in my eyes. The regular stage lights were not a problem, but there was a row of lights flashing directly from behind the group out into the audience. There wasn't any flashing light warning issued, either. Maybe they weren't strobe-like enough to cause harm? Squinting, though, at least for me. As is the case in such concerts I have seen online, there are segments of the whole group (in this case 7 members) performing, interspersed with times where 3 or 4 of the guys would go offstage to change clothes and briefly rest while the others did little challenges or singalongs or chatting onstage. Then they'd switch. During those times, the flashy lights were off. That was nice.
Last night I went to a town hall with my congressional representative, Katherine Clark. The claim was that she'd speak for a little while and then take questions. She ended up talking for about half an hour, including at least five minutes of showing us Republicans (none in Massachusetts) who had promised not to harm Medicaid but then voted to do so. Her point seemed to be that we should help those running against them, but mid-terms aren't for two years and I'm not going to go out of state to knock on doors (or do it here, actually). The first questioner was more a rhetorical question than an actual one "How can people be so cruel to their constituents?" and clearly more people wanted to speak than there was time allotted for it, so I left without hearing how we can fight back in the short term. She had pointed out that most of what is happening now is lawyer-related. I'm not a lawyer. She seemed to assume that everyone in the room was a politically active Democratic voter. I would guess not, but I left, so I don't know.
The age cohort was very different from Tuesday's event. There were a few young people there to hear KC, but not a lot. Mostly my age or older, many of whom I recognized. Fewer masks, proportionally, but I was not the only one.
There were positive aspects of the concert. It wasn't quite sold out, so I had empty seats around me in the balcony
I don't know about downstairs, but upstairs masking was at about 20%. Light stick use was higher. The fans were very enthusiastic. I was disappointed -if one is there to hear people sing and watch them dance, I don't want the bass (instrument) cranked up almost to distortion, and I don't want decorative colorful lights shining in my eyes. The regular stage lights were not a problem, but there was a row of lights flashing directly from behind the group out into the audience. There wasn't any flashing light warning issued, either. Maybe they weren't strobe-like enough to cause harm? Squinting, though, at least for me. As is the case in such concerts I have seen online, there are segments of the whole group (in this case 7 members) performing, interspersed with times where 3 or 4 of the guys would go offstage to change clothes and briefly rest while the others did little challenges or singalongs or chatting onstage. Then they'd switch. During those times, the flashy lights were off. That was nice.
Last night I went to a town hall with my congressional representative, Katherine Clark. The claim was that she'd speak for a little while and then take questions. She ended up talking for about half an hour, including at least five minutes of showing us Republicans (none in Massachusetts) who had promised not to harm Medicaid but then voted to do so. Her point seemed to be that we should help those running against them, but mid-terms aren't for two years and I'm not going to go out of state to knock on doors (or do it here, actually). The first questioner was more a rhetorical question than an actual one "How can people be so cruel to their constituents?" and clearly more people wanted to speak than there was time allotted for it, so I left without hearing how we can fight back in the short term. She had pointed out that most of what is happening now is lawyer-related. I'm not a lawyer. She seemed to assume that everyone in the room was a politically active Democratic voter. I would guess not, but I left, so I don't know.
The age cohort was very different from Tuesday's event. There were a few young people there to hear KC, but not a lot. Mostly my age or older, many of whom I recognized. Fewer masks, proportionally, but I was not the only one.
