100 Amazing Acts

It's getting harder and harder to think up things to do and places to take my folks while they're here with me. Luckily, Chicago is a town where summers are packed full of activities and events, so it doesn't take too long to come up with a destination. The highlight for this weekend was tapas at Cafe Babareeba (best tapas in Chicago), followed by a Cirque Shanghai performance at Navy Pier. "Bai Xi" (or 100 Amazing Acts) as it is known in Chinese, follows in the footsteps of ancient Han tradition, and it's name is a reference to its practitioners' seemingly endless abilities.

I've enjoyed seeing Cirque du Soleil perform before, and after reading reviews I figured that Cirque Shanghai was going to be something similar. The show was definitely entertaining, though not quite for the same reasons as a Cirque du Soleil performance. The acrobats were highly talented, of course, and displayed uncanny flexibility. From the flying trapeze artists swinging through the air, to the juggling tightrope-walking unicyclists, to the human-pyramid-forming children - all displayed a balance and elegance that was exquisite.

No, all of that was fine. It was the music that got to me. The show started out ok. With the six hundred year old Forbidden City as its stage backdrop, the performance had kung-fu performing acrobats going through their hypnotic moves to the beautiful strains of huqin music. Modernity was tastefully represented with electronic percussion and drums subtly blended in, and the overall effect was quite authentic. Until Act 2 began, and with it the Mission Impossible theme song.

Here popped out gold clad male acrobats, able to do push-ups with their fingertips while supporting more hand-standing acrobats on their necks. But all I could think of was Tom Cruise dangling from nylon rope as he struggle to prevent drops of sweat from falling on a pressure-sensitive vault floor.

The same problem continued with the juggling unicyclist, as she balanced saucers on her head while juggling tennis balls with one hand. To more movie music.

By the time two more male acrobats showed up and squared off in mock combat, I thought I'd heard enough. But that was when Queen's "We Will Rock You" came on the speakers. I couldn't take it anymore. While the two "traditional Chinese acrobat" combatants twirled impossibly around each other, I turned to Saeeda in frustration and asked her what the hell was going on.

"That," she replied, "is called globalization."

The Interrobang

With all this free time on my hands, I've been able to hit the gym with regularity. Results have been slow, but at least I'm not out of breath when I climb a flight of steps. The gym atmosphere has helped keep me engaged - the machines are nice and new, the staff helpful, and the other patrons are serious lifters, all of which helps to motivate my own workout. The problem with my gym is that the music selection leaves something to be desired. I'm no music junkie, and admittedly I have very little knowledge of the music world. Still, it kinda sucks when you're reaching failure on the last rep of the last set of your bench press, with every fiber in your body trembling in an effort to squeeze out just one more ounce of energy, when Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" comes on the speakers. Game over.

So I've started taking my iPod Shuffle to the gym, and rely on that to keep me motivated. It just so happens that during my last workout I decided to skip past the regular songs I have, and ended up with a podcast I've recently subscribed to. Now, I understand that working out to a podcast is high on the nerd scale, especially given what I mentioned above. But, at the risk of sounding like a complete geek, I actually enjoyed the session. The podcast I ended up listening to was that from Grammar Girl , a real-life science writer whose passion is to make grammar fun for the masses. If you think I've completely lost it and am a complete loser, check out her podcast ratings on iTunes. They're through the roof.

This particular podcast's topic was on punctuating questions. Yes, I know, fascinating. However, she mentioned what is a pet peeve of my mine - the widespread habit of ending questions full of surprise like so - "He said what?!"

People of the world - a statement is either a question, or an exclamation, and not both. Pick one. Please. Not doing so has given rise to the habit where writers feel that they can show even more surprise with, "He said what!!" And REAL surprise with, "He said what!!!" Folks, adding exclamation marks does NOT make the statement any more surprising. Nor does, "He said what???" show more complete befuddlement than the simple, "He said what?" Please, for the love of English.

But this is where Grammar Girl comes to the rescue. Apparently there is a rarely used punctuation mark designed specifically for the purpose of combining a question mark and an exclamation mark, and it comes with the beautiful name of an ... interrobang.

See how that just rolls off your tongue‽ Don't you just love it‽ Don't you agree that email communication everywhere will become just that much simpler‽ He said what‽

Yes, the interrobang simply combines the typographical question and exclamation characters to form a new one - ‽

So that's it. A long winded way for me to do my part to spread grammatical clarity through the rest of the world, and to make sure that people come to love this spurned character as one their own.

Goooo, interrobang‽

Transformers ... not much that meets the eye

*** WARNING: There are no real spoilers in the text below, but if you're a die-hard fan that hasn't watched the movie, skip this entry ***

Saeeda and I watched the new Transformers movie two nights ago. It was every little boy's dream come true. There were cool cars, crazy aircraft, hot babes, thunderous explosions, and destruction galore. And it was loud. Really loud. Saeeda and I both enjoyed the movie - Saeeda because she grew up watching the cartoon, and me because of all the special effects. It was hard to tell what was real and what was not.

However, halfway through the movie, Transformers turned into Independence Day. You remember that Will Smith movie? The one that had aliens running Windows software, and the President of the United States leading fighter aircraft into battle? The same thing happened to this movie - robots began cracking jokes (they have a sense of humor?), in one scene Optimus Prime tries to stay quiet by tiptoeing around a house and hiding behind a tree (!), super-attractive college hackers figure out information that teams of government scientists can't crack, etc.

You see, there's one thing about suspending disbelief. I am fully willing to believe that there can be robots running around that transform into everyday machines to disguise themselves. But then there are other, seemingly trivial things, that bug the crap out of me. Why is that?

Oh, and maybe I can get some help with this next. You see, I never watched the cartoons as a child (they didn't air in Spain when I was growing up there), but I know enough about Transformers through pop-culture osmosis. When we walked out of the movie, Saeeda remarked that she was disappointed the robots didn't unite like they used to do in the cartoon. I said that she was confusing Transformers with Voltron. She said I was wrong. I reiterated that she was wrong. Therein ensued a passionate argument, that continues to simmer. Any help?