Lost & Found

This post is about my Christmas present.

I know I know, Christmas is already a distant memory for some of you but there's a reason for this lateness.

I want to start by telling you the back story. (Okay, if you're a little short on time you can just skip down to where I've marked the crux of this post with lots of ******)

Two years ago, the first Christmas after we got married, when I was still under the optimistic delusion that, one day someday soon, I will succeed in training Jerms to read my mind, I began dropping some obvious hints as to what I wanted for Christmas. They include casual comments such as "Oh I found this really cool knitting doll kit online today... it's really really cool... did I say it's really really cool?" and "Um, Ben Folds has put out a new book of sheet music. Did I mention that I'm in love with Ben Folds?"

Even to my semi-delusional mind back then, it soon became apparent to me that he was not catching on. For one, there were no visits to www.dotpebbles.com under Mozilla's 'History' page and definitely no visits to Allan's Music superstore in the City.

But being the refuse-to-give-up gunho die-hard that I am, I decided that I just needed to be more obvious.

So I made a wishlist...

with descriptions of each gift, expected price, and more importantly, WHERE one might be able to purchase these gifts, if one was looking to do so.

To be honest I can't remember what I got that Christmas. Needless to say it wasn't on my list.

************
So this last Christmas, I decided it was time to be practical and give up on any school girl silliness and just tell him exactly what I wanted. Tickets to see the Lost and Found Orchestra as part of the Sydney Festival.

We went to the matinee performance last Sat at the Opera House, (which is why I'm only blogging about my Christmas present now) and it was FANTASTIC.

The set looked quite strange to start with, lots of steel structures and stages, even a bathroom up one side of what used to be the choir circle.

When the lights dimmed, a group of people walked on stage and started playing... instrument cases!!

Basically the idea is that they use instruments made from everyday objects, which, as far as I can remember included...

• different lengths of plastic tubes
  
• drain pipes with mouthpieces that sounded like bassoons
  
• a massive wine glass xylophone
• vibraphones made from water cooler bottles
  
• beer bottles
• shopping trolleys
• plastic barrels
• those bouncy exercise balls
  
• witches' hats as horns
  
• garbage bags
• saw violins
  
• bicycle horns
• a harp made from a bed
• really long tubing with a cone at the end
  

And vacuum cleaners! Serious.

Because a lot of these instruments only made one single tone, it required incredible coordination across a fairly large number of people to produce a coherent piece of music. It was a bit like a concert cross with a dance cross with a circus. There were certainly tap dancing elements (the creators created Stomp), acrobatics, clowning, as well as my favourite, a kung-fu sequence where about 10 pairs of people 'fought' with broom sticks and 'played' a percussion piece at the same time.

You can read a write up here. I'm sorry I have no pictures. You can't take photos inside the Concert Hall and in any case there're probably plenty of pics on the web.

************
btw, to Jerms' credit, he did get me something on that wishlist eventually. But this has taught me an important lesson about marriage... ladies, don't try to change your husbands. It's much easier to change yourselves.

Tooroo.