{"id":1762,"date":"2015-06-01T15:00:51","date_gmt":"2015-06-01T15:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.reggiemorrisey.com\/?p=1762"},"modified":"2015-06-01T17:05:10","modified_gmt":"2015-06-01T17:05:10","slug":"in-the-swim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reggiemorrisey.com\/?p=1762","title":{"rendered":"That Which Dazzles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let's see. I'd say the crystal chandeliers beneath the ceiling of\u00a0the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles in France, dazzle. Closer to home, sunset over the Gulf of Mexico on most nights does it for me, too.<\/p>\n

The Amalie Arena in Tampa scored as\u00a0the place where the Lightning<\/em> ice hockey team dazzled Florida fans to dizzying heights in their 2015 Stanley Cup dreams.<\/p>\n

But wait! The arena\u00a0also served as the venue for the third of 32 engagements in entertainer Bette Midler's 2015 tour. She is Bette. She is Midler. As she will continue to remind hundreds of thousands of fans in June and July, she is the dazzling, Divine Miss M.<\/p>\n

Midler's June calendar crisscrosses the map\u00a0of the United States. In July, she moves on to adoring fans in the United Kingdom. By chance before the Tampa show, we met and chatted in an arena lounge with two residents of Wales on holiday in Florida, who very merrily got a jump on waiting U.K. fans. We all proved to be animated Boomers, savoring the delicious anticipation of seeing Bette live.<\/p>\n

At show time, flashing our Christmas gift tickets, my husband and I joined approximately 10,000 people streaming to their seats surrounding the stage, to be utterly mesmerized by the non-stop dancing, singing and bawdy Mae West\u00a0joking of the Divine Miss M.<\/p>\n

At 5'1\" tall and with 69 years on the planet - nearly 50 years onstage - Bette Midler<\/a> is the consummate entertainer. In Tampa during two hours of snappy costume and mood changes, Bette showed what\u00a0perfect timing means, easily driving us to uproarious laughter and tears.<\/p>\n

Dressed in a slinky, shimmering red gown, she poured her being out in the song Stay with Me<\/em>. I didn't recall hearing it before. A torch song begging a guy not to leave, it is on the sad side to be sure. But then, Bette paused in her singing to speak of all the loved ones in her life she never dreamed would die and who are now just ghosts over her head. Suddenly, the aching refrain, \"Stay with Me, Stay with Me, Stay with Me,\"<\/em> was being song to them, a powerful turn in the arena for anyone who has experienced loss. We were putty in her hands.<\/p>\n

As you might expect, Midler brought the\u00a0house down with the favorites, The Rose<\/em> and Wind beneath My Wings<\/em> and rightly so. What a voice! What a delivery! We were honored to be there.<\/p>\n

And, after the show, we were delighted to bump into that couple from Wales. Now, this sort of re-encounter doesn't happen in most crowded arenas. All of us were intrigued by it as we talked excitedly about the show and moved along with 10,000 people; we\u00a0four strangers, including two from the famously reserved U.K., parting with hugs and kisses under the Tampa night sky.<\/p>\n

As the lyrics say in another Midler favorite, \"From a Distance,\" written by composer Julie Gold:<\/p>\n

\"From a distance we are instruments marching in a common band. Playing songs of hope, playing songs of peace. They're the songs of every man.\"<\/p>\n

Even a brief experience of Bette's immense goodwill is worth the price of admission. Thank you, brave, bawdy, inimitable Bette. From a distance and close up, you certainly represent the dazzling to us, as you did to your parents when they sang to you, Bei Mir Bist Du Schon<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Review: Bette Midler as vivacious (and bawdy!) as ever at Tampa's Amalie Arena<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0Bette's foundation<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

\"PalaceV_HallOfMirrors\"<\/a>

Dazzling\u00a0Hall of Mirrors, Palace of Versailles, France<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let’s see. I’d say the crystal chandeliers beneath the ceiling of\u00a0the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles in France, dazzle. Closer to home, sunset over the Gulf of Mexico on most nights does it for me, too.The Amalie Arena in Tampa scored as\u00a0the place where the Lightning ice hockey team dazzled Florida fans […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reggiemorrisey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reggiemorrisey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reggiemorrisey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reggiemorrisey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reggiemorrisey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1762"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.reggiemorrisey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1762\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1764,"href":"https:\/\/www.reggiemorrisey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1762\/revisions\/1764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reggiemorrisey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reggiemorrisey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reggiemorrisey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}