New Thing #116: Saw Anthony Bourdain at the Baghdad

Tony Tony TONY! You rock my world. I saw Anthony Bourdain give a Powell's book talk about his newest release, "Medium Raw." I think this picture is super funny! It was kind of how he was too. The guy was very, very funny in that off-putting, could buy him a drink way... two guys actually DID buy him a shot of whiskey, which cracked up the audience. Erin almost didn't get in because Ticketmaster didn't have her tickets placed at will call – those jerks! They charge like an arm and a leg in taxes and then poof, don't even deliver. But thankfully, she has a smart phone and showed her receipt on screen. We saw him on the street before and after the book talk. He was like 10 feet away from me – wicked! We also got amazingly great seats in the second row of the Baghdad Theater. I was kind of disappointed that all of the praise on the new book's jacket was about his previous book, "Kitchen Confidential," which I HAVE to read now. A funny interchange happened between Erin and I:
Me: "Wow, he's so skinny!"
Erin: "Heroin."
Me: "OHHhhhhhhhh!"

New Thing #115: Imogen Heap "Ellipse" tour

New thing was to see Imogen Heap at the Arlene Schnitzer concert hall. It was my first time at the Schnitz, which was gorgeous by the way, and also my first time seeing Imogen Heap perform live. She had a great vibe with the audience. Only annoying bit was that her two opening acts played for an entire hour before she opened even though the tixs said the show started at 7:30 p.m.. She didn't even come on until 9:15 p.m. We were definitely a captive audience :/ But still, she is an amazing artist. She improvised a song from a melody from an audience member and donated proceeds of that download to charity if we will go to iTunes and download it. Plus, she had a plexi glass piano and all this great electronic equipment. She could have ditched the hammer pants :) [Image from Imogen Heap press kit]