Walk through the fire...and balsamic vinegar

Furthering the weekend of unrepentant nerdcraft and geekerie, I went to the Buffy Singalong on Saturday (see also the Post's relatively positive review). The organizer informed us that the shows in DC had sold out faster than in any other city, despite the fact that it was the Harry Potter weekend. Priorities! But it was no surprise to see people killing time in line by plowing through the bricklike tome. I was trying to resist the urge to be antisocial and read the new Buffy Omnibus that Il Siciliano had brought me, so we joked about creating a distraction and yoinking a copy or two of HP7. Blood would've been on the sidewalks of Friendship Heights for sure, not to mention all the bad karma.

"Once More With Feeling" is only about an hour long, so the show is padded with music videos, assembly of prop kits (poppers, fangs, little monsters, cue cards, bubbles), Buffy-oke, and a trivia contest for extremely trivial prizes; I won an Atomic Fireball for knowing Mister Trick's favorite comic strip but biffed Spike's favorite snack (not Weetabix?) and the moment when Anya became a capitalist (the Game of Life--huh). Eventually, on superfan Clinton McClung's mark, we grr-arghed our way into the show. Very few people danced in the aisles, DC being a staid city, but everyone sang--there were even harmonies! divisions of the audience to sing the Tara/Giles duet!--and used the props enthusiastically. The Post would have you believe that there were no extemporaneous lines, but at least at the Saturday show there were a lot of unprintable suggestions thrown out for Spike and Giles, not to mention the usual excessive Dawn hating. I find "The Sound of Music" terrifying in all its incarnations, but this show was the opposite of scary, even with such, er, highly motivated fans.

The downside of the evening was dinner at nearby Arucola. It took forever to get served, the manager was driving his staff frantic, and not long after our food arrived, a waiter who was literally running out of the kitchen tripped and dropped his entire tray, whanging it into my shoulder and sending vinaigrette splattering everywhere. The manager's reaction was to rush over and, once he realized that nobody was hurt, snap, "Accidents happen." His promise to cover the cleaning bill (new shirt, dammit) would have been enough had his first reaction not been so unpleasant, and of course not sending his staff into a tizzy over an average Saturday night crowd would have been good too.

But did I mention that there was Buffy? Because everything else was details.