Pteryx

Apparently what I really needed to do this week was listen to a bunch of music.

Books
The Last Hour Between Worlds, by Melissa Caruso. First in a fantasy duology set in a really fascinating world where god-level beings are contesting to set the theme of reality for the next period of time through their mortal pawns at a new year's party. Loved the POV character because in addition to being a badass, she's a new mom and it plays into everything. Really looking forward to the next in this series.

Music
Isabelle Faust, Kristin von der Goltz & Kristian Bezuidenhout, J. S. Bach: Sonatas for Violin and Continuo. Very nice recent release of Bach's chamber music.
Isabelle Faust, Solo: Matteis - Pisendel - Biber - Guillemain - Vilsmayr. More baroque music, but solo violin this time.
Isabelle Faust, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Bernhard Forck & Xenia Loeffler, J.S. Bach: Violin Concertos. More Bach but with a larger ensemble.
I'm With Her, Wild and Clear and Blue. Folk trio made up of Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O’Donovan, and Sara Watkins, which I hadn't listened to although I knew all the members and have seen Watkins live repeatedly. I love their harmonies on this, their second LP, and am really looking forward to seeing them live on Friday.
Hiromi, Sonicwonderland (feat. Sonicwonder). She's a jazz pianist who fronts an ensemble and this is their debut album. I was listening to it while writing House of Cards and it was fine for that purpose but I think I'd have to give it another more serious listen to decide whether I really liked it.

Dozo Sushi to Go is the best to-go sushi in our part of town. They have a bunch of boxes with good samplers of several different types of fish (salmon, which we had this time, yellowtail, tuna), some nigiri, and some rolls. Most of it is nice, but basic. They don't deliver so you have to pick it up and speed home.

The presentation of the boxes is very nice; not as fancy as eat-in, obviously, but they do put a little thought into how it looks. The rolls and nigiri come in the standard black & clear plastic boxes that your gro sto sushi comes in. The portions are generous--no skimping--and the fish is decent quality. It's not what you'd get from a really nice sushi place but it's definitely on the far upper end of gro sto sushi, like Eatzi's or HEB, but with a nicer set of options.

This is, I think, our third time ordering from them and each time we've enjoyed it. There are hard limits on what you can do with sushi to be eaten outside an actual sushi restaurant and Dozo approaches them.

Peter Pan at the Texas Ballet Theater. Winspear Opera House. September 19, 2025.

I didn't know there was a ballet of Peter Pan, and afterwards when researching the ballet, I found out that while the music is Elgar, it apparently wasn't written specifically for this purpose. The plot is also different to other versions of the story, including a made-up son for Captain Hook and whole sections of the book plot that don't appear in the ballet. The overall arc is similar but focuses on the pirates and Captain Hook in the Neverland section.

The stagecraft was well done for the most part, though something happened with the mechanicals behind the scenes that set off the smoke alarm in the first scene of the second act. We evacuated but were back in the theater inside of a quarter hour. A lot of the stage movement was handled by the "shadows" but for the flight scenes they did more wirework than I would have expected. One of the tricks for the passing of time was showing portraits with a frame behind which the depicted Darling family members stood, out of which Wendy would step and dance.

The costumes were interesting. The fairies, led by Tinkerbell, were in pink and green costumes with pink and green wigs. Peter was in a green wig and a wild-creature type costume instead of the usual Robin Hood sort of costume. Captain Hook, in contrast to his usual pirate tricorn and coat, was in a purple get-up with makeup that resembled the Joker more than anything else. The Darling parents looked and danced refugees from a Tim Burton movie.

The best dancers were definitely Peter, who was also great with the wirework and did the most flying, and Hook. Hook managed a lot of menace in his characterization that could have been undercut by his costume and the kind of silly-looking hook. Peter, whose dancer is short but is clearly a grown-up man with the strength and grace of an adult, did a fantastic job of being childlike in his dancing and emotive work. The dancers playing Michael and John were also very good at that.

I didn't realize until afterwards that we had opening night tickets. It's not a great sign for the company that a lot of seats were empty. I don't think that's the performance, though, just the economy. I hope this production does well because it was a lot of fun, the fire alarm notwithstanding.

Books
The Rushworth Family Plot, by Claudia Gray. Fourth in Gray's next-gen Austen murder mystery pastiches. The mystery is good and having resolved the will-they won't they of the protagonists, Gray cleverly and unexpectedly brings in an outside obstacle from a previous book. This is brand new so I'm going to be waiting for a while to see how she gets around this one.
The Witch Is Back, by Sophie H. Morgan. Recommended on a fantasy romance list. Perfectly adequate fake dating second chance mystery in another one of those hidden-world pastiches of Harry Potter, with American flavor. I'm not interested enough to read the next one but the way a subset of the fantasy romance authors play in the grownup Potter-esque space (Higher families?) without admitting they're going there is fascinating to me.
Dent's Modern Tribes, by Susie Dent. Britain's favorite celebrity lexicographer teaches you the jargon of industries and hobbies in this novella-length non-fiction book. I knew some of the ones from the groups I'm familiar with but I learned a lot as well.