LADCC Awards

OK, first a little bit of background, since this blog very rarely talks about anything from my actual, y'know, life:  I am a lawyer.  I am also a theatre critic.

I became a theatre critic for the incredibly selfish reason that writing nothing but legal stuff was driving me up the damn wall, and I felt the need to write about something else, in a different style, before I went mad.  Also:  I really love theatre.

So, with the help of some friends, I got myself a gig as the L.A. Regional Theatre Critic for a website that is much better known in New York than in L.A., and I toiled away in relative obscurity until such time as I was invited to apply for membership in the L.A. Drama Critics Circle.

Honestly, at the time, I was fairly surprised that they voted me in.  I felt like they were an organization of "real" theatre critics who did this for a living -- many of them writing for print publications -- while I wrote the occasional review on the internet for fun.  But, bless their little hearts, they voted me in -- an act which, I felt, gave me some measure of legitimacy (and helped raise the profile of our website in L.A.)

Three things give me immense pleasure as a critic:  The first is when someone tells me they saw a show based on my recommedation, and loved it.  This makes my day.  I still get genuinely excited about shows that I love, and it fills me with happiness to know that I helped someone else experience a wonderful show.  The second thing -- which is rather more rare -- is when someone associated with a show tells me that they changed something about their show based on something I wrote in a review.  This can make my entire week -- even when it's something really small, like changing a word in a new play, or trying a completely different read on a line.  But the idea that my review has, in some way, made a show better, makes me feel like I'm a useful part of the process -- not just the process that sells tickets, but the process that makes good theatre -- and that is a really awesome feeling for a lawyer who just took up theatre criticism to stretch her writing muscles. 

The third thing I enjoy is giving out awards.  I've co-produced the LADCC Awards show a number of years.  It is ... and I don't think I'm telling tales out of school to say so ... a phenomenal pain in the ass.  (There are a variety of reasons for this, most of them having to do with us not actually being producers.  And having no budget.)  But I've co-produced the awards show because I think it is crazy important that we keep having an awards show.  It is our way of giving back to the theatrical community, and recognizing the really excellent work out there.  Since the awards come from the entire organization, they don't always (or, really, ever) perfectly reflect the individual opinions of each member of the Circle -- but the trade-off for that is strength in numbers.  When the Circle gives someone an award, it has more cachet than a single member listing that someone in a "Best of the Year" list.  It is the organization -- a bunch of different critics from a bunch of different outlets -- collectively expressing the opinion that a particular individual or theatre company, for lack of a better word, rocks.

And I love playing a part in that.  Which is why, even though I did not produce the Awards Show this year (thank you, Bob Verini, for taking that one on), I took on a bit more than my fair share of the work.  Because I wanted it to happen, and happen well, and continue happening for years to come.  

With all that said, then, this is my experience at this year's LADCC awards.  I leave the objective recounting of the event to our organization's website and those of some of my colleagues.  This is my personal damn blog (I'll be giving you those dogsledding pictures next), and I just want to document my night.

I am, however, documenting it with Official Photographs from the event, courtesy of our event photographer, Jayne Calucag.  Jayne -- like so many other people involved in our Awards Show -- volunteered her time, for which we are totally grateful. 

OK, so, here it is.  We begin with the silent auction I worked really, really hard to put together.  And had to move about four times because my secret plan to "trap" unsuspecting theatregoers into our "spend money" area violated all sorts of fire codes.

And here is all the lovely food I didn't get a chance to eat, because I was too nervous about presenting awards:

 I had a piece of shrimp, though.  And one of them baby carrots.

Our show was hosted by French Stewart.  

In his opening bit, he made a comment about how he has never won an LADCC Award, for the very good reason that he's never been nominated for an LADCC Award.  It takes a special kind of person to volunteer his time and talent to host a show for an organization which has egregiously overlooked him time and again.  And this year, French Stewart became the latest in a (surprisingly) long list of performers who have been willing to do it.  (We love you, Jason Graae!)  And, unless I miss my guess, Bob became a member of the very exclusive club of LADCC Awards producers, who sat there listening to their host get laughs out of this awkward situation, thinking, "Yeah, we deserved that."

Actually, there were a ton of performers who volunteered their time and talent.  Here, I note the folks from the Chance's production of West Side Story, who recreated "The Rumble" for us -- pre-show, I saw someone walk in with a tupperware marked "Switchblades," which totally cracked me up -- and I also note Ms. Cesili Williams, who earned herself a standing ovation mid-Awards-show (a first, as far as I know).

(Look at that!  We had lighting!  Like a real show and everything!)

OK, OK, where was I?  We left me, having consumed one (1) shrimp and one (1) baby carrot, getting ready to go on stage.  I was tasked with ... well, let's be honest here, I pretty much begged for it ... talking about 3 of the shows nominated for "Production" this year.  (Oh, and let me take care of one misconception right now.  It isn't "Best Production" or "Production of the Year" or whatever.  We give awards for "Theatrical Excellence" in several different categories; and we have multiple winners in many of the categories, because there's a lot of excellence out there.  Interestingly, though, we don't break stuff down into musical/play; big theatre/small theatre; or male/female performers.  If we did, and had a single winner in each category, we'd probably give out the same total number of plaques.  Instead, we just pile them all together and give multiple awards for excellence.  Deal with it.)  So, OK, I asked really nice and begged and pleaded and got the honor of talking about 3 of the shows we nominated for Production.

The first one was a play called The Gronholm Method, an indictment of corporate culture in the form of a "group" job interview, setting the candidates against each other in a series of psychological tests.  In my prepared remarks, I mentioned a particular line from the show which really summed up everything wrong with corporate America, and was gratified to hear someone in the audience react to it.

Look, I am not an actor.  My place in the theatre is firmly in the audience (apparently, with a notepad on my lap).  But when I'm standing there making a speech and I get an unexpected audience reaction, it's a teensy weensy taste of the actor/audience relationship from the other side of the footlights.  It's cool.  And, of course, the real magic of theatre comes with what the actor does with that unexpected reaction.  (Me?  I just grinned.)

The second play I got to talk about was Cyrano, an absolutely brilliant adaptation of Rostand's original, which reset the action in contemporary Los Angeles, and did away with Cyrano's big nose -- and instead had a Deaf Cyrano trying to woo a Hearing Roxy.  I loved it to bits, and, for our Awards show, spent a few months with a tutor brushing up my questionable ASL skills so that I could sign my remarks about the show, as well as speak them.  

Woot!

And then I got to return to the safety of my podium, and talk about War Horse.  Pretty fun to talk about two really small shows and then one huge spectacle of a show all in the same speech.  (See that bit about awarding "Theatrical Excellence," above.)  

(Also, by the way, look! Slides!  Bob put together a massive slide show -- so that we had one slide for every nominee (and multiple slides for our special award winners).  Made the show much more visual, I thought.)

And by the time it was all over, Cyrano and War Horse both walked away with Production Awards.  (Yay!)  Here's the Cyrano people accepting their award.

I don't have a picture of the War Horse people accepting, but we also gave a Special Award to Center Theatre Group -- the folks who brought us War Horse -- for general awesomeness, and here is their Artistic Director, Michael Ritchie, picking it up.

(OK, it wasn't actually for "general awesomeness."  It was for an excellent season, because besides War Horse, they also had Follies, and Fela!, and American Idiot (which made me a Green Day fan), and that was just in one of their three theatres.  Damn fine year.  Damn fine.)

We gave two other Production awards.  One was for The Book of Mormon, and the other was for an itty bitty musical called Justin Love.  Justin Love was a really sweet Hollywood fairy tale where the young innocent falls in love with the Biggest Movie Star in America, and they happen to be gay.  It was an adorable show (still is ... and is being produced in San Diego soon) with the very simple message that everyone deserves their own big happy Hollywood Ending ... and the Justin Love folks sang their closing number at our Awards show for our closing number.

And, well, that's what I've been up to since I got back from Canada.  Besides doing Law and stuff.

I'm Alive

Wil asks where the hell I've been.  (Thanks, Wil!)  The thing about the trip to Canada was that it was extraordinarily bad timing.  I had tons to do at both my day job and my night gig as a theatre critic, and I'm only just swimming to the top of the pile.  Should have those pictures (and -- something new -- pictures from our recent theatre awards show) within the week.

The Sourdough Rendezvous

When we were choosing which weekend to go up and try to see the Northern Lights, we selected this particular weekend, because it was the weekend of the Sourdough Rendezvous, Whitehorse's annual cabin fever festival.

I wasn't entirely sure what to expect.  Whatever I expected, I should have probably downsized expectations.  Because, as previously mentioned, the place is small.  Part of the Rendezvous included the International Snow Sculpting Challenge, and I think there were something like 7 entries.  (And that included "Alaska" and "United States" as two separate entries -- Alaska was under its own flag -- a fact which probably says a hell of a lot about how Alaska, and Canadians living nearby, perceive it in relation to the rest of the U.S.)

And yet (and yes, there are pictures coming), the actual snow sculptures were really quite nifty.  The competition was lacking in entries, but it wasn't lacking in quality.

There was a tent with a stage and performers (who were late getting on stage and did their sound check right there in front of everyone -- noboby cared, it was warm in there).  There were various variety acts, the crowning of the Queen (as well as the selection of one "Sourdough Sam"), and, shortly after the Queen and her court are announced, they play the local high school in a Teens vs. Queens hockey match.

There were a few booths set up selling food.  Before we even got to the Rendezvous, I told Margret I'd buy her something "onna stick," confident that this would, in fact, be on the menu.  It was.  (Pork, as it turned out.)

I have to admit, though, that what I was most interested in were the competitions.  Like Speed-Sawing and Hatchet-Throwing.  The whole thing was incredibly good-natured, with a crowd standing around.  (Don't stand behind the hatchet-throwing target.  Really.  I saw two hatchets fly past the little safety net back there during the practice throws.)  And everyone cheered everyone else on, especially the folks who'd never sawed a block of wood or thrown a hatchet before.

All that said, I think -- and Margret agrees with me on this one -- that my enduring memory of the Sourdough Rendezvous was when this one dude was taking practice hatchet throws, and the emcee made a comment about the dude being a "real Yukon man."  I pulled my eyes away from the target and over to said specimen of Yukoniness, to see that a rather large unclothed expanse had appeared between his (flannel) shirt and his pants, and the revealed backside skin was ... I'll just say he provided his own warmth in the winter.  And the furry fellow reacted not with embarrassment, but pride.

Over the weekend, I heard a lot of talk from locals about how Whitehorse used to be a real frontier town, but now it's just getting too civilized.  The Sourdough Rendezvous is Whitehorse's annual attempt to dig in its heels a bit against the inevitable march toward Starbucksification.  It's a celebration of the frontier spirit, the traditions that hold a community together, and the quirks that set it apart from everyone else.

Yeah, I can pack that

So, yesterday, we went to the Wildlife Preserve and the local hot springs.  Our itinerary informs us, with respect to the hot springs "please bring a towel, sandals/flip flops and your bathing suit."  This was remarkable for two reasons.  First, because it was the only time the itinerary gave us advice on what to wear.  Second, because it was totally wrong.  As soon as we got on the bus, we were informed that the hot springs would supply towels, flip flops, and even swimsuits, if we needed them.

Not knowing this, I set out to acquire flip flops in the morning before we went.  I mean, I had a swimsuit and could steal (borrow) a towel from the hotel, but I didn't have anything close to flip flops, and thought they were required.  So, Margret and I went off to the nearest outdoor gear supply store (which actually occupied three adjacent storefronts) so's I could buy some cheap flip flops.  Hell, I could always use a pair of flip flops, right?

Well, not only did I acquire flip flops, I acquired snow boots.  My own snow boots -- which are more than warm enough for anything I'd need in L.A., were beyond inadequate here.  We rented a bunch of cold weather clothing from the tour company.  (At first, they gave me the wrong size and forgot Margret's order entirely, but eventually we got our gear.)  And the boots they gave me were the smallest boots they had, but they still weren't my size.  On the other hand, Margret spotted a pair of super duper cold weather boots (rated, not to -40 like the loaner stuff, but -100) in my size, for half-off.  They fit perfectly, so I bought the damn things.  They're massive.  They go up to my knees.

They're perfect.  Lord only knows how the hell I'm going to get them home.

Because I had just purchased them, I wore them to the Wildlife Preserve.  We had thought that it would be a walking tour at the Preserve -- it wasn't, it was a van tour.  But, it was a van tour with a lot of getting off and on the van.  And, as it happens, somebody should have said to wear your big heavy snow boots for this.  Because even though the distance from the van to the fence around the area where the musk ox was living was about, oh, 100 feet, that land happened to be covered by a certain amount of freshly fallen snow.  And when I say "a certain amount," I mean, "I took a step and was up to my knees in snow."  The snow boots were all kinds of awesome here.  The lower part of my jeans was sopping wet and I so didn't care.  I was warm and cozy inside.

Before the tour of the Wildlife Preserve began, we were told we would see ten types of animals, and we did:  bald eagle, bison, thin-horn sheep, caribou, elk, mountain goat, arctic fox, musk ox, lynx and moose.  The lynx and moose were a little distant from us, but everything else was pretty close.  The Wildlife Preserve gives every animal (or family, or group) of animals a pretty large area in which to hang live, nice and relatively comfy, somewhat similar to its natural habitat.  Except that the animals are also supplied with food and water, so they needn't hunt for it.  And the food and water are supplied in locations right near the fences.  So you can get pretty near the animals, as they're hanging out near the fence, enjoying a bowl of Purina Sheep Chow, or whatever the hell they've put out for it.  There will be photos.  I got, what is, without a doubt, my best photo of an eagle ever.  This was probably because the eagle at the preserve can't fly.  They took him in after he had a broken arm (wing?) which was set improperly, so there was no way he was ever going to make it in the wild.  Now, he just hangs out at the Preserve, being fed, and posing for pictures.

(My favorite was the arctic fox, who was more or less lounging on the top of a little wooden structure, posing away.  She was quite beautiful, and she knew it -- just sitting there, slightly coquettish, expecting us to adore her.)

So, yeah, ten animals, just like it said on the tin.  Pretty impressive.  Then we piled back into the van for our trip out to the Takhini Hot Springs.

The Takhini Hot Springs is located in the middle of nowhere, apparently somewhere near the nowhere where we head out to view the Aurora.  While the nicely heated changing room is indoors, the hot springs are outdoors, with a fairly lovely view of, well, random Canadian outdoors.  A naturally fed hot springs, which naturally is fed water at ... I did the math, something like 107 degrees ... although the bulk of it isn't all that hot (being outdoors will do that to you), so we all spent most of our time huddled around the walls from where the really hot stuff was emerging.

We're told that, for the Sourdough Rendezvous -- a bit more on that later, it's a local festival which was going on this week -- they ran a "frozen hair" contest.  You just go into the hot springs, dunk your head in the water, emerge from the water, and freeze your hair in a silly position.  (Then take a photo, warm yourself up in the water again, and run like hell into the changing room.)  None of us took part.  Hell, I so didn't want to take part, I stole a shower cap from the hotel and wore it into the hot spring.

Yes.  I wore a shower cap into a public hot spring.  Given the way I've been dressing for the past few days (for warmth, only for warmth), I clearly don't give a damn about how I look.

We went back out for the Aurora last night, but didn't see any.  i spent most of the time hanging out in the warm cabin.  Our guide made maple toffee.  It was good.

Reeses, Val, Mischief, Panda, and Beethoven (aka Shivery)

So, we woke up yesterday morning (in the broadest definition of "morning," -- we bailed on the scheduled City Tour and slept until the bus for that one had already departed -- which was about 7 hours of sleep) had some lunch in the pub in the hotel, and got ready for the day's adventure.

The day's adventure was a half-day dog sled tour.  Now, I did a dog sled thing up (or is it "over"?) in Alaska.  In that one, every dog team had two little sleds attached, with the guide on one of the sleds and three tourists in the other three positions (one "driving" the second sled, and two others riding in the sleds).  None of that crap here.  Here, every pair of tourists got its own sled -- you get to switch driver/rider positions at the halfway point.  There were a total of 5 sleds that went out.  We had two guides covering the lot.  They were relatively nearby, on snowmobiles.  They'd come by if you stopped and waved at them (as we did when one of our dogs got tangled up in the lead), but otherwise tried to stay out of range as the sound of snowmobiles detracts somewhat from the dogsled experience.

But, basically, after about three minutes of instruction (well, no -- after signing the waiver form, a half hour of getting us all in the right gear, and about three minutes of instruction), I was standing on the back of a sled, with Margret riding, and the five dogs named in the title of this blog post rarin' to go.

(Yes, five.  I'd always assumed an even number of dogs pulling a sled, but Mischief liked to run in the middle -- sometimes in line with the dogs on the left, and sometimes in the dead center of the pack.)

Our dogs were quite enthusiastic about the whole process.  We were told how to slow the sled, how to stop the sled, and how to get the dogs to go.  Apparently, you yell something like "Go!" while stepping off the sled and giving it a bit of a push.  I never had to push.  Getting our dogs to go after a stop (usually because the sled in front of us stopped -- but sometimes because the dogs needed to poop, or were thirsty and wanted to eat snow)...  anyway, getting our dogs to go never required giving the sled a push.  What generally happened was that I'd be standing on the brake, while they'd be standing up ready to run.  I'd say, "Wait for it....  wait for it....", while I waiting for the sled in front to get a good distance ahead, and then lift the brake while saying, "OK, go!"  You didn't have to tell them twice.  I heard a constant stream of "Go Mozart!  Go Mozart!" from the snowmobile, directed at the sled ahead, but Reeses and company were genuinely happy to run.

(Except perhaps Beethoven, who we named Shivery.  At first, we didn't know their names, so I just called them by numbers.  And Dog Five would shiver every time we stopped, and liked to rest and eat snow.  This annoyed the dogs in front.  We'd take a snow break for Shivery, and after everyone else had two bites of snow, they were eager to go, and he'd be sitting there resting.  But you say "Go!" and they're all up and running.  Heck, the dogs in front wouldn't even stop to poop -- Reeses did his business while on the move.  I expect that's the privilege of being the dog in front.)

It was solidly fun to drive the sled, and also solidly fun to ride in it once we switched positions.  I pretty much laid back in there, relaxing, and leaned out every now and again to take a picture.  (To follow later.  I can't get photos from the card in my camera to the tablet from which I'm posting.)  Afterward, we were told we did about 18 kilometers (upwards of 11 miles), which is really awesome.

(Subsequent thereto, though, I had an evil evil headache.  The nice people at the dog sled tour place provided us with warm drinks and fresh baked brownies, and I felt so lousy I didn't even want a brownie.  Shocking.  I begged some headache stuff, and was supplied with aspirin with caffeine and codeine, a combination which, unfortunately, did not knock out my headache, and also had unpleasant gastrointestinal effects.  I told Margret, as we piled into the van for the ride back to the hotel, that there was about a 40% chance of me throwing up on the way back.  About halfway to the hotel, the van driver decided it was too quiet in there, so put on a Neil Diamond CD.  This did nothing good for my headache.  I did make it all the way back to my hotel room, and managed to get a clip holding my hair back before I commenced driving the porcelain dog sled.  I will never hear "Sweet Caroline" again without thinking of that moment.)

I did feel immediately better, and Margret and I thought we'd get some Chinese food for dinner.  The guy at the hotel reception desk pointed out the existence of three Chinese restaurants in downtown Whitehorse.  One was directly across the street from the hotel, one was six blocks away, one was about 12 blocks away in the opposite direction.  He recommended the one six blocks away.

We walked there.  It was closed.  (Renovations.  Several weeks.)  We walked back to the one across the street from the hotel.  Here's the thing:  when there is a restaurant directly across the street from your hotel, and the dude at the reception desk recommends the one six blocks away, there's probably a really good reason for this.  I had a bowl of wonton soup which I can honestly describe as "edible," while Margret ordered some beef with broccoli, which we could not describe as "edible."  Indeed, it would probably be a stretch to describe it as "beef."

We went back to the hotel and, after checking out the Aurora Forecast (low activity and relatively crappy skies), we decided to take a pass on the four hours in the middle of nowhere, and instead stick around town, get Margret some real food, and get a good night's sleep.

The town ... ok, the other day, I said that it must have had 10 Starbucks for the entirety of the 27,000 people.  It probably does, if you include the outer areas.  But we're staying in downtown Whitehorse.  Downtown Whitehorse has one Starbucks.  We are talking about a place that has an entirety of seven traffic lights.  We walked up and down Main Street, and (with the exception of one bar and one snooty steakhouse) couldn't find one place that was open and still serving after 8:00.  So, unfortunately, our Decent Food mission was a failure.

The Good Night's Sleep part was not.  And when we found out this morning that there were no Aurora to be seen last night, we realized we'd totally made the right call.

A Note on My Camera

You will not see pictures of the aurora from me here.  (Not even after I get back and can upload pictures.)  For the perfectly good reason that "Damn, my camera is inadequate."

To take pictures of the aurora, you need to make 3 manual adjustments to your camera, only one of which I can actually adjust on my little point & shoot.  And that one is shutter speed.  You're going to want a good 30 seconds, to capture all that light.

The longest shutter speed on my camera is 8 seconds.

When you have a 30 second shutter speed, you need a good solid tripod to park your camera on, because you can't hold it perfectly still for any length of time.

My only tripod is a mini (maybe 4-inch) gorillapod.  

When we first waited out the field, Margret set up here tripod all nice and steady on the ground, like a normal person.  I parked my gorillapod on top of a nearby mound of snow (covering ... I have no idea).  Because nothing goes with a woefully inadequate camera better than a woefully inadequate tripod.  I wanted to take a picture of my little camera setup next to everyone else's camera setups, but, of course, my camera couldn't take a good enough picture of it.

I'll be leaving my camera at home for our next few nights of aurora viewing attempts.  The guides have cameras out there, and can even manage to take a picture  of you in front of the aurora.  If we do get more light activity (probably not likely until Sunday, but we'll give it a shot anyway), I'll ask the guide to snap one of me.  Otherwise, I'll just get copies of whatever Margret manages to take.

Check that off the bucket list

So, I last left you with 2 hours of a sleep and a 24 hour day ahead of me.  It pretty much went according to plan.

I'd hired a car to take me to the airport, which turned out to be a smart move, as I was, indeed, operating on 2 hours of sleep, and I was pretty sure that an SUV at 65 mph counts as the sort of heavy machinery you shouldn't operate drowsy.

I'll spare you the excitement of the two flights and the 3 hours layover in Vancouver Airport.  I eventually found myself, and my friend (who met me in Vancouver) in Whitehorse, up in the Yukon.

Not a big place, Whitehorse.  Population is 27,000, which is pretty small.  Probably only 10 Starbucks here.

The reason I was supposed to be awake until 2:30 this morning is that we were going out to the middle of nowhere (Whitehorse is only nowhere adjacent) to attempt to see the Northern Lights.  The reason I was actually awake until 3:30 is because we did, in fact, see them.

At 9:30, we piled into the van ... I lie.  At 9:30, we piled into a van and several school buses.  I'd anticipated a much smaller tour group.  The operation we're here with, Northern Tales, gives you the impression that it takes a van load of about 12 people out to a field someplace, where you sit drinking coffee and eating cookies in a small cabin, then you run outside to view the aurora when they happen to be aurora-ing.  This is what actually happens:  They own (or rent) three large fields on some farmer's property.  The fields are separated by trees (and, probably, access roads).  In each area, Northern Tales has a viewing area.  There were about 40 of us in our field.  The guide told me that the next field over was 90 Japanese tourists (and three Japanese-speaking guides.)

For the 40 of us, we had one big field with a good view to the north; and (behind it, so as not to interfere with photographs):  a campfire; a little canvas teepee with chairs and a wood burning stove; and a smallish canvas cabin, with another wood burning stove.  Also, lots of hot water for beverages, almost (but not quite) enough mugs for everybody, cookies, chips, peanuts, pretzels, marshmallows (and sticks for roasting them).  And an outhouse (with no heat source whatsoever -- a fact which made me strictly limit my beverage consumption, and balance it with salty snacks).

Once they showed us around, we set up our tripods in the field, and waited for the aurora.

And waited for the aurora.

About two hours into this, I said "fuck it" and went into the teepee, then moved to the cabin.  Look, they rented me a bunch of clothes rated down to -40.  Even though it was only in the -10 ballpark, it was still a bit chilly.  Especially when all you're doing is standing stock still in a field waiting for the heavens to do something.

I also realized that with THAT many people around, someone was bound to outside at all times, and I figured that if the aurora were going to get busy, someone would have the good sense to yell, "Hey!  They're active!"  I mean, it isn't like you're going to scare them off by shouting.

The plan is that if there's no visible aurora activity, you leave the field at 1:30 a.m.  And if there is aurora, you leave at 2:00.  2:10, at the latest, unless they're really going something awesome.

It must've been around 1:15, when I'm thinking, "yay, we can get on the bus soon," that one of our guides popped his head into the cabin (filled with sleepy tourists) and said, "the lights are starting."

It's not the sort of thing you can say calmly.  My parents joke that, when you're teaching your kids to drive, the guidebooks say you're not supposed to say, "stop."  Instead, you're supposed to say, "please, bring the car to a halt."  You know, so the kid doesn't slam on the brakes and send you hurtling into the dashboard.  Well, after we've been waiting for the lights for 3 hours -- and, in fact, some of the other tourists there had been out several nights before, and they hadn't had any aurora action -- saying "the lights are starting" is the equivalent of yelling "stop" at a teen learning to drive.  Instant reaction.  Thirty people stampede the door.

Nobody even went back to where they'd staked out good positions with their tripods, either.  We'd all taken them down, in preparation to leave.  So we all sort of gathered at the edge of the field, found a place with nobody else in front of us, a looked upward, scanning the skies.

It was cloudy.  Really cloudy.  Which meant we didn't see much in the way of colors, because the clouds were between us and the lights.  (I saw one that was vaguely green, but they were mostly just lighter patches in the clouds.  Moving lighter patches in the clouds.)  Still, they were nifty and cool and impressive.  I heard some couples huddling together excitedly.  A few people actually cried.  Collective "ooohs" and "aaahs" from the next field over, as though the Japanese tourists had practiced Synchronized Aurora Appreciation.

I don't get all spiritual in my appreciation of Amazingly Cool Shit -- it just isn't in my nature.  At the same time, when I'm standing there, with everyone behind me (so it feels like I'm quite alone) looking up at these dancing lights in the sky, it does feel like there's something more going on than just light from solar flares doing nifty things when meeting our atmosphere.  The world is full of breathtakingly beautiful things, and even when science provides a perfectly rational explanation, it doesn't make them any less inexplicable.