"Ah, Bach"
Radar O'Reilly

Okay, this isn't about Bach, it's about Mozart but "Ah Mozart" doesn't flow as well, seems to me.

Two nights ago, saw my very first Mozart opera, Cosi fan tutte which means, of course, "snuggle up here with this big oscillating fan". No, that's not what it means. The story is simplistic and kind of silly -- the old "can my love remain faithful to me when I'm not around" story. To test their girlfriends, two men (urged on by their troublemaking pal) decide to dress up as swarthy middle eastern soldiers and each try to seduce the other's lady. Their "disguises" consist of ridiculous Mario Brothers mustaches, a fez and a turban. I know, it sounds like a bad episode of Three's Company (Ha! Caught you! They were all bad! Remember the one where they had that big misunderstanding? I laughed and laughed.... )

However, while the story may be juvenile in the extreme (but there's a long history of this particular type of story being borne out in opera, it turns out; Beethoven's only opera Fidelio is based on a similar theme) the libretto is actually very witty and well-written, and even in translation is hysterically funny. And then there is the music. Holy cow. Mozart has always been my guy. Which makes me like a classical music peon because nobody doesn't like Mozart, I think, except maybe Satan and Ann Coulter. I have learned that there is nothing like a Mozart opera. It's like eating full fat Ben & Jerry's ice cream after you've grown used to low-fat ice milk with Splenda sweetener. The first few bites are life changing events, and just when you think you've grown used to it, bam you find a chunk of cookie dough or maybe a little reservoir of caramel fudge in the middle that you weren't expecting, sweet and creamy and breathtaking.

Yeah, it was like that. Especially after some of the other, modern operas I've been sitting through this summer. They are not necessarily bad, although at least one was, but they don't have the same mouth feel. (It's hard to savor a tritone. Could you guys resolve a chord once in a while??) You can convince yourself that Madame Mao is tasty and multilayered, but it's a lot more work for you. Mozart is like buttah, goes down easy and you can't believe the finish and the way it lingers on the tongue.


Now I'm all hungry for ice cream...



posted by MT at 3:26 PM |

As if anyone needed more proof that the inmates are running the asylum...


I just read this, twice, and can't believe what I'm reading. I thought maybe it was the description of a bizarre new RTS game (real-time strategy for you non-geeks). The Pentagon wanted to set up a futures market to map out what might happen regarding terror attacks and other military or political events. Now, no one knows less about markets than me, but this description helps. Check this out:

...The program is called the Policy Analysis Market. The Pentagon office overseeing it, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, said it was part of a research effort "to investigate the broadest possible set of new ways to prevent terrorist attacks."

Traders would buy and sell futures contracts -- just like energy traders do now in betting on the future price of oil. But the contracts in this case would be based on what might happen in the Middle East in terms of economics, civil and military affairs or specific events, such as terrorist attacks.

Holders of a futures contract that came true would collect the proceeds of traders who put money into the market but predicted wrong.

A graphic on the market's Web page Monday showed hypothetical futures contracts in which investors could trade on the likelihood that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat would be assassinated or Jordanian King Abdullah II would be overthrown.

Although the Web site described the Policy Analysis Market as Middle East market, the graphic also included the possibility of a North Korea missile attack.

Okay, that makes sense. It's asinine, but I understand it. Thankfully, some other folks did too:

That graphic apparently was removed from the Web site hours after the news conference in which Wyden and fellow Democratic Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota criticized the market.

Dorgan described the market as "unbelievably stupid."

"Can you imagine if another country set up a betting parlor so that people could go in ... and bet on the assassination of an American political figure or the overthrow of this institution or that institution?" he said.

The article goes on to report at least one defense of the idea from DARPA (although the updated article states that the plan has been shelved...ostensibly because it is primitively stupid and grotesque, but they don't say that) because this idea works in other situations: "But in its statement Monday, DARPA said markets could reveal "dispersed and even hidden information. Futures markets have proven themselves to be good at predicting such things as elections results; they are often better than expert opinions." . Yeah, but presumably the folks who are, say, predicting election results have no motive to go and assassinate the opposition to be sure that they can cash in. Wow.



posted by MT at 12:03 PM |

Weird dreams

LK and I have been on the Atkins diet for the last week. We both are looking to be fantastic for the big day. I happen to think she looks incredible, but she thinks that's just cause I'm in love or something, but not so. I am consistently having to blind random passers by for ogling her. It's quite tiring. But there you are. It's my job.

Now, if you are going to comment on the whole Atkins thing, please at least have read the book. It isn't just meat and cheese and bacon and eggs every day. Lots of veggies are part of the plan as well. I've been on it before, and it worked fine, and since I'm kind of a carnivore anyway, it was pretty easy. The reason I went off was mostly due to my travel-related food options. Everyone on the plane wants you to eat pretzels and sugary yogurt and so on. The facilities where we conduct research want you to eat continental breakfast if it's a morning thing, and snack on pretzels and crackers and so forth all day. Try to get them to put out a veggie and cheese tray. Feh! They can't be bothered.

Anyway, LK is having more trouble with it than I am because we've been eating more red meat than she is used to. Not agreeing with her very well. She craves fruit (especially in the hot Santa Fe dryness) and I say, pay attention to that and give your body what it wants. So she may not pursue it. But I think I can stay the course until the wedding, anyway. As we've been joking, September 28 is the day we can let ourselves go! On to Italy! Feed us! Poorly! Indulgence is the key. At least for ten days.

So what does this have to do with dreams? I think, because we haven't been drinking at all this week (not even the lovely glass of wine with dinner, Atkins says no) we have built up a sensitivity. It could happen. Last night was the premiere of
Madame Mao, an opera loosely based on the life of Mao Zedong's wife, who was quite a nasty lady, as you will find if you read the article (or know any Chinese history, which I don't). World premiere, right here in Santa Fe. At the after-party (I get to go to those, as the husband-to-be of that violinist over there) I indulged in a martini, and half a glass of wine. I think that did it.

So the dream (it's not really that great after all that preamble) was one of those showing up for an exam in your underwear kind of dreams. I was moderating a focus group in Chicago and I didn't know what the topic was. The room was full of physicians (and they kept filing in, till we had about fifteen docs, which is powerful strange), and I didn't know why we were there, and I had no discussion guide. I couldn't even introduce the topic. Meanwhile, around me, all of these agents are setting up complicated electronic equipment, tape players and video screens and even a filmstrip projector! Filmstrips! Anyone out there remember those from grade school? Holy crap, why would cutting edge pharmaceutical marketing research make use of a filmstrip? And all the while, I kept pestering these folks to give me a discussion guide so we could get started. The docs were all looking at me expectantly, time kept ticking away.

And then, in the hallway, my sensation and perception professor from college walks by. Seeing an opportunity to excuse myself from this disaster, I dashed out after him and we started talking. When I came back into the room, even more physicians were around the table, and it had turned into a free-for-all. The only thing missing was the horde of clients in the back room screaming for my head on a stick.

Sigh. I think this is my subconscious telling me that I'm enjoying myself too much in the SW and should get back to the office. So I told my subconscious to shut the hell up. I think it worked.


posted by MT at 4:27 PM |

Loot!

Back in Santa Fe after some hairy last minute snags with, you know, work and crap. Almost postponed my flight for an alleged in-person meeting that wound up being a phone conversation that did not need my warm butt in a chair. Luckily I followed my instinct and didn't stick around. My warm butt, instead, was in two airplanes, two taxis and one big long shuttle ride from Albuquerque to Santa Fe. But enough about my butt.


Remember when your parents asked you to make up a gift list? Christmas, birthday, a mitzvah of some sort....You are in the driver's seat. You get to cruise through the stores, laying your hands on this or that (these days, you just go online...Actually, my nephew has taken to cruising over to Barnes and Noble and writing out long lists of books, with prices, just to make things easier on us. Gotta love that kid.) Well, the up side to all this wedding planning (we're putting together a web page with directions, times, and other useful facts) we finally got together and began registering for wedding loot.

We decided to register at Williams-Sonoma and Target. We'll probably pick a department store too in case people can't get to either of those places. In this way, we are being helpful as well as good capitalists.

Now, let me say we love Target. (Pronouncing it Tar-jay will give it a more upscale feeling). They have got this gift registry thing down pat. You start the process on line. After assembling all of your facts, they give you a bar code that you print out and take to the store. At the store, we were given a huge folder with catalogs, instructions, and even little cards to put in the invitations saying that we are registered there. (LK suggested they were too tacky to include and I agree). And the best part is the little hand-held laser scanner that we used to select our loot. See it? Want it? Scan it! It's in there! Want two? Scan it twice! WooHoo! I felt a little like a dog marking his territory with a StarTrek phaser gun. It was wild. A completely decadent feeling. Felt pretty good, actually.

So now, for those of you keeping score, we have the invitations ready for printing (doing it at home to save some green) and half of the hotel reservations set as well. Announcements went out a few weeks ago. Chugging along. Every time we finish one part of it, it seems like we add three more things to the bottom of the list.

posted by MT at 10:59 AM |

Quick linkiness...


Back on the east coast for a few days, finding it to be much lower to the ground than Santa Fe and with fewer burros braying (bleating?) in the wee hours! Evil Newton is in fine form, I thought at first that his incredibly generous sitter was being incredibly generous, but it turns out that he found the super bag of lowfat food atop the washing machine and had torn it open and was obviously munching away without anyone being the wiser. He is a crafty little porcupine, I'll give him that. LK and I are thinking about renaming him Richard Parker, who is the Bengal tiger featured in Yann Martel's Life of Pi a book you should BUY RIGHT NOW because it is that good.

But, I have no time for stories now. I just wanted to share a few things with you. First, Taiwan_on is back after a several-month-long hiatus. Hail and well met. You should go see, it's great fun.

Second, link via Mimi Smartypants (haven't done THAT in a while), we have the impossibly oxymoronic Fellowship Baptist Creation Science Fair. Take a close look at this page. Go now. Are any of you convinced that this is real? Take, for example, this entry:

2nd Place: "Women Were Designed For Homemaking"
Jonathan Goode (grade 7) applied findings from many fields of science to support his conclusion that God designed women for homemaking: physics shows that women have a lower center of gravity than men, making them more suited to carrying groceries and laundry baskets; biology shows that women were designed to carry un-born babies in their wombs and to feed born babies milk, making them the natural choice for child rearing; social sciences show that the wages for women workers are lower than for normal workers, meaning that they are unable to work as well and thus earn equal pay; and exegetics shows that God created Eve as a companion for Adam, not as a co-worker.

Way to go, Jonathan. Too bad he's only in 7th grade, huh ladies? Quite a catch, this kid. His future wife is in for a real fun time...

Please. This must be a parody. First of all, how could such a carefully reasoned project have only recieved second place? (/rimshot). And there is a reference to Landover Baptist (actually, they claim to have an ongoing campaign to shut down that site) which you will be familiar with if you ever travel over to Whitehouse.org. Smells a bit loaves-and-fishy to me. But it is entertaining all the same. And if it isn't a parody...well, let's hope for these kids' sake that it is. (/shudder).


posted by MT at 1:56 PM |

Hanging out in the desert.

I am truly surprised that I'm enjoying myself so much out here in Santa Fe. Not the being with LK part, that's been blissful. But we are in a desert, you know. I am not a warm weather animal. We were in a bar (Cowgirls!) last night after a performance of Strauss' Intermezzo (more on that later) and someone else echoed the exact sentiment I've always had about temperature -- you can always get warmer, but in the heat, you can shed every stitch and still feel sticky and hot. Heat makes me ornery and cross and I sleep too much. But there's something different about the desert heat. First, and I hate to say it, the humidity factor makes a difference. A colleague told me the other day that an oven has dry heat too, but you wouldn't want to spend much time in there. But the impact of the heat changes when it's dry. You can breathe, you can move, it is stimulating and not oppressive. And the evenings are just blissful. Clear, stars packed in there like the cross-section of a fiber optic cable, and we've had a full moon for the last two nights that has been just breathtaking. Sleeping with all the doors open, a cool 65 degrees, woohoo!

Next door (way next door, since the farm is on the outskirts of the main town, down this old dirt road [Quail View Lane!!] so there's lots of distance between we and thee) live two burros who like to bray in the early hours, a few mangy dogs and some horses. I saw my very first jackrabbit the other day. Like that old Bugs Bunny cartoon, "Hyde and Hare" where he transforms into Bugs Bunny Hyde after drinking the doctor's formula. Larger than it ought to be, lanky muscular...looks like an animal bred for the desert. They could kick my ass, I think. Mostly because the altitude left me weak and kitten-like for the first few days.

So this week, I've been WAH-ing, which is working out with moderate success. The two hour time difference is strange. I am always on the computer. LK goes out, comes back, finds me in the same spot she left me in. I'm a poster child for the virtual office.


Tributes and Tribulations.

I know virtually nothing about opera, except what I've learned from LK and by watching the few shows I have. So I learned a few more things this weekend. The Santa Fe opera company was founded by this guy, John Crosby, who died in December. His birthday would have been yesterday, and the company played a very moving tribute in the afternoon, full of reminiscinces, memories, dedications of the theater, and a musical interlude of Strauss' Four Last Songs sung by an amazing soprano, and reviewed here for your viewing pleasure. It was an emotionally potent afternoon. He was apparently very much a father figure, which you get from the link above, and like many children, the people who worked with him were decidedly ambivalent about his various moods and behaviors. Much of this came out in the tribute, which was an interesting blend of "what a great guy" and "he wasn't always such a great guy."

But among other things, he's credited with bringing Strauss to the attention of American audiences. In honor of this, the company is performing Intermezzo this season, Crosby's favorite opera, which is a rather bizarre and frantic situation, a strange cross between tedium and manic energy. Now to be sure, opera is by definition melodramatic, but this was beyond the pale. A large steaming pile of misogynistic crapola. The music was spectacular, but the singing kept getting in the way. I tried to find a plot synopsis online, and found this German summary, which, when translated with Google's translation feature, reads as follows. (I love how badly the translation works out, it seems appropriate somehow).

First Act: Kapellmeister Stork, which loves his Mrs. Christine much, must travel officially to Vienna. Christine makes friends itself in the meantime with baron Lummer, whom she became acquainted with when carriage driving. It writes its man of the new acquaintance and asks to promote the baron dispatches Lummer however briefly, when it wants to anpumpen it. The post office brings a letter from Vienna. Christine is except itself, when she reads the following text: "dear treasure, sends nevertheless again two Billetts to me tomorrow to the opera, afterwards in that bar, like always, your Mieze Meier". It hurries annoyed to the notary, in order to submit the divorce. She explains to their small son the fact that she would have to always leave dad and sends an appropriate telegram to her man.

Second act
The Kommerzienrat, senior counsel and the two kapellmeister play straight Skat, when Christines telegram is brought. Speechless stork falls away and errs in the Prater around. Finally it turns out that the letter was addressed to straw and Mieze Meier confounded the names straw and stork because of their similarity. Christine, which loves its married man of hearts, believes gladly to its innocence asseverations, both reconciles itself.

Confused? of course you are. What the hell is playing straight Skat, you ask? Not at all what you think, it's cards. But basically the premise is a "dark comedy" about a horrible marriage. Autobiographical, as well. And the most disturbing thing (well, other than the English translation of the German, which is only slightly more sensible than the above) was that so many people in the audience found it funny. It was cruel, brutish, and completely inconsistent with the stunning music that struggled against the voices on stage. A truly bizarre experience. Like watching a three hour train wreck.

That's just one man's opinion, but judging from the way that a good quarter of the audience streamed out of there before the curtain calls were finished, I'm not alone in thinking this. So look at me! I'm learning about opera....

posted by MT at 1:49 PM |

The best day of the summer…

Was Thursday, lemurs, with Friday even better. Here’s what happened. It was shaping up to an intense promise of anxiety. You know me. Out on the road all week, my flight from Dallas delayed, getting me back to Philly at about 3 am. Picking up V on Thursday for our last visit before I head out to Santa Fe to hang my shingle at LK’s place for a few weeks. (got the nod from the Powers That Be back at the office to be officially WAH-ing for an extended period, even though I’m WA-NM-ing…hmmmm. Wan-ming. Sounds like a subdued, listless Asian vase or something…)

Anyway, back to the day. I had an urgent request from the client of all week to get a mini report to them before the holiday. Did the hard work on the plane but it still required a bit of my time in the morning after I picked up V, about a half hour’s worth of work proofing and sending it off. I hate doing that. We had nothing scheduled, but when we’re together it’s supposed to be all about the two of us, and work should not be part of it. She seemed bummed, and found her way to the circle the track a few times on the Playstation with Crash Bandicoot (fun game, that, but still). On my agenda was a series of wedding related items, including a) final contract signing with the photographers, b) picking up a quarter of a million champagne flutes and forty-thousand wine glasses from IKEA. And of course, packing for the extended trip, trying to find someone to keep an eye on evil Newton while away – all of this on about four hours sleep, give or take. Not the best way to start a day.

But the trick seemed to be getting the hell out of the house. Can’t swim, too damned cold. Playing computer games got old in a big hurry. So off to Ikea, for a strange Swedish lunch and mountains of glassware. We made a game of it, and Ikea is kind of a fun place for a ten year old anyway, so the day started lightening up. Finding places for the flutes in my car proved challenging. The conversation naturally worked its way around to all things wedding-related (not my idea at all, but she kept pressing me for what exactly her role might be in the whole affair). She wants to be flower girl, not realizing that that’s something usually reserved for much younger kids. But not content with that, she also decided it would be fun to sing a song. Grab your hankies, folks. We were listening to Radio Disney (MUSIC AND PRIZES that ROCK!) and a handful of songs from that Hilary Duff movie kept playing. One (come on, you know the one) has the refrain “This is What Dreams are Made Of,” and we both decided this was suitable wedding fare (Her first choice, a remake of Blondie’s “The Tide is High” seemed less appropriate, the catchiness of the tune notwithstanding).

She had two moments of inspiration right there in the car, knee-deep in SVAKA glassware: getting a copy of the movie soundtrack so she could learn the song, and making ‘candy sushi’. The second was perhaps less inspired. (and for those of you dying to know, although you could probably work out the details with a little thought, the sushi is achieved with fruit roll-ups instead of seaweed, marshmallow instead of rice, jimmies instead of that orange caviar (what’s that called again?) and gummi items instead of the raw fish or veggie components. Let’s stop to consider this a moment. This single-handedly takes one of the healthiest things you can eat, a delicate blend of all necessary food groups, and turns it into a tooth-throbbing day-glo insulin-spiking diabetic nightmare. Yum.

Anyway both inspirations were fulfilled at K-Mart (yay) where we also found the eight pound bag of diet Iams (Food for the Festively Plump Feline) that I needed. While we were out and about on the road, LK was working feverishly behind the scenes trying to find our cat-sitter (most of the candidates were friends of hers, so it seemed more appropriate and probably had a higher probability of success with her in the driver’s seat). And lo! We had a winner. So that anxiety was dissipated, leaving the rest of the day to day-glo sushi (which was actually more like a candy taco by the end…blech) and learning that song. Well, there’s a ballad version of it in addition to the techno dance number, and V decided that we should do both. I get to sing the male part on the ballad. This is all going to happen in the gazebo, after the ceremony. She is practicing dance moves in the living room all afternoon, and taking all of this as seriously as a coronary bypass. We had fun, but she wouldn’t abide my attempts to make light of some of it (after listening to the song about forty times, it occurred to me that “this is what dreams are made of” sounds suspiciously like “this is a green tomato” and I tried that substitution with scowlingly limited success, as you might imagine).

But all of this revelry wasn’t the best. What was best was the way she is coming around to the whole wedding idea, wanting to take such an active and central role in it. Yes, darling darling you are still the center of my world, and you are also going to be part of our new family too, and you can sing and dance in front of everyone to be certain that they don’t forget it either. And I’ll be singing too, to make sure they all get it, if that’s what you want. If not entertaining, it will certainly be unforgettable.

And then, as we were heading back home, she asked me when she was going to see me again. She knows I am headed out to Santa Fe for an extended period, but she is taking long trips over the next few weeks, so we weren’t likely to see as much of each other as usual anyway. But even so, it was important that she be able to pick a date on the calendar. Lemurs, you don’t know how long it’s been since she asked me that. Years. Not since I was living in Buffalo, when I would call and her first question was “when are you coming?” Made this old man’s heart swell.

So it was a great departure, and a great arrival in Santa Fe with my beloved. Am still adjusting to the altitude and the incredible dry dry dry air, which is manifesting in lots of sore throats and bloody noses, but I think that will pass soon. Hope everyone had a great fourth.

posted by MT at 12:00 PM |