What’s doing

Just so we’re all caught up: last weekend Thom and I took on a couple of cooking projects. On Saturday I decided to make a popular Filipino dish, chicken adobo. It turned out all right, not exactly the way mom used to make (and still does), but a valiant attempt, I thought. Then on Sunday, mostly thanks to Near East products, we made a feast of falafel, tsatsiki, and taboule. Yum.

Also on Sunday we went to Arlington Cinema ’N’ Drafthouse to see The Motorcycle Diaries. I thought it was pretty good, especially the acting and cinematography. However, as a Che Guevara biopic, it’s difficult for me to judge. Certainly it romanticizes and idealizes his youth, a portrayal which has been sharply criticized. For me it was far more enjoyable to watch it just as an anonymous road-trip movie (though that’s obviously not its intent); in fact for most of the movie, I forgot it was about Che and not simply some ordinary young men on an extraordinary journey.

Upcoming plans: tonight we’re seeing Fallen from Proust, a new play by Norman Allen at Signature Theatre. (Allen is also developing a musical with Matt Conner based on the poetry of Edgar Allen Poe. I caught a preview of one of the songs, “Annabel Lee,” last fall.) And this weekend we’ll be in New York for The Gates, the new MoMA, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and whatever other diversions we can find.