We went to see the Publick Theatre’s production of Arcadia on Saturday evening, and had a very picturesque time. The theatre (which I spell that way in deference to their chosen pretension, not because of the lingering muscle memory in my fingers — and so I recall that I have not yet written my entry on my philosophy of spelling) is an outdoor performance space, complete with deep blue night sky for backdrop, the smell of cloves floating through the air during intermission, the sound of crickets and planes overhead competing with the actors’ voices, the threat of rain drenching the scenery, and complimentary bugspray for the audience if they want it.

It was really beautiful. I’d never read or seen Arcadia before, and I wasn’t at all prepared for how funny, clever, and moving it was. Like Copenhagen, which I also loved, it’s a play that tries to manifest scientific and mathematical concepts through human interaction (and extended exposition); unlike Copenhagen, the characters in Arcadia don’t seem to be acting in service to the theories they talk about. The play also sets up a wonderfully ambiguous and playful tension — which isn’t really a tension — between the pursuit of scientific knowledge and the pursuit of artistic expression.

Too much talking. There are five more performances over the next three weeks — go see it!

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I called Sean on Saturday to give him the smackdown for not coming to my wedding (and to invite him to come to dim sum the next day), but then it turned out that I had to give him the smackdown for moving out of the state and not telling me, too. ;-) Poor Sean. He’s just moved to bumblefuck Georgia to start a brand spanking new Masters program in Very Old Languages and The Things That Were Written In Them, and he’s kind of having a miserable time of it so far. So I could only be righteous for so long before I cracked and gave the boy the tea and sympathy he deserved. Well, really just the sympathy. I’ll send him the tea in a care package. Sarah, how far away are you from Athens, GA? Close enough to commiserate with a fellow transplant to the South?

In any case, after a great (and quite justified) moan over not being able to join us for dim sum on Sunday, Sean did recommend a restaurant that he said we should go to, which is why Ross and Peter and I spent most of our late morning and some of our early afternoon today waiting outside Hei La Restaurant in Chinatown for a cranky woman with a microphone to say the words we were dying to hear: “Lup sat bat! Lup sat bat!” (68, our magic number.) Since they were apparently seating people in order of the size of their group, and we were a tiny dim sum eating party of three, we had to endure the heartache of sitting helplessly while numbers as high as 69, 72, 87, and, god help us, 98, were called. It was a long and hungry wait. Sadly, I was forced to eat Ross’s left forearm in the interim.

Still, the jasmine tea was fragrant, the siew mai was oily, and the company was very fine — so it all worked out in the end. (Ross only needs one hand for chopsticks.)

That’s all for now. Send good thoughts to Peter, who’s starting a thrilling internship with a NY judge next week, and Courtney, who’s looking for a thrilling job in the same genre. Go, lawyers in my life! Go do good!