Both my volunteering for Obama this past Saturday and the Madonna concert were fun, but ho-hum to relate.
The second-career grad student and I met up yesterday in the lobby of her building to go grab the bus to the concert, and she told me that the guy she lives with has been making fun of her for going to see Madonna, but she was psyched. She was wearing long leather boots when I met her, too, so I congratulated her on the appropriate look.
On the way there, we talked about Islamic mysticism - she keeps wondering how people who claim to know the inner life of God through contemplation ever find an audience - and we kept talking about that stuff too at the stadium bar before the concert, where I got a Stella Artois and she got a chardonnay.
She also told me about how in the early 70s her mom got involved with a Catholic charismatic group and her mom hated the way she prayed when she spoke in tongues, it was very guttaral, but the one time she went to church with her there her mom was speaking this ugly sound, but as the tongues spread through the church, overall it sounded like how angels would talk.
The "Stick and Sweet" tour was so-so. As my friend pointed out, when it was just Madonna speaking to the audience, or during a really low-key song her just singing against a few instruments, she couldn't hold the audience, that the energy level just died the few times that happened.
But, my friend also pointed out that she's a creative force, and each song was always interesting if not inspiring, so that's been making me think that Madonna uses her creative force to make set pieces of music, art, and dance that work together to present her as varied incarnations in different tableaus, only she doesn't always have the critical judgment to know what she does well and why.
In terms of set pieces, my friend liked this three-to-four song set of gypsy-and-hoedown flavored music in the middle of the concert, and I agree with her, that that was the best part, even though a hoedown arrangement of "La Isla Bonita" was rather counterintuitive, especially since the electronic backdrop almost looked like a Buddhist mandala, though the dancers in Western-styled wear sitting on hay-bales and wagon wheels.
She also liked this song where the chorus was something like "She's Not Me" -- it's about how the singer's boyfriend is fucking her best friend, but that's not her -- and it ended with these four dancers posed around the edge of this circular platform, all dressed up like previous incarnations of Madonna, and Madonna going around re-posing them violently and tearing off their clothes while yelling out "it's not me!" or whatever the heck the line was from the song.
Right after the concert, too, when my friend mentioned she really liked that one, I was like, "Did you notice how she kissed the bride too after hitting her?", she was like, "One? She kissed a couple of them!"
On the way back to the subway station after the concert, also, I offered to buy my friend a steak burrition as we walked by a Taco Bell -- they were on sale, a sign said, so I was like, "[my friend's name], let me buy you a steak burrito" -- but she said she's only been in a Taco Bell once, years ago, and declined.
She also said that the guy she lives with is on some theater board here in the city, and sees a lot of plays; the past 12 days, for example, he saw 11 plays, since it's a busy season.
She also also said that when she's not reading Medieval mysticism, it's mostly fashion magazines that she reads.
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