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Author Archives: kayewer

• Saturdays in New York

  Posted at 12:31 am by kayewer, on May 22, 2011

  The song was “Autumn in New York,” not Saturday, but just spending a day can be an interesting experience.  Over the years I’ve spent quite a few Saturdays or a few occasional weekdays in the city, mostly walking from place to place.  It’s good to have comfortable shoes, a well-rested body and good spirits if you plan to hoof through the forest of steel and stone that is New York City.

  It feels good to walk, spending an hour or so between destinations on the move and not sitting down.  When you work all week from an office chair, the pavements of the city are welcoming and amazingly well maintained for such high traffic activity day and night.  The people seem used to fast footwork, crowded street corners and the cacophony of multiple languages clashing above their heads from all angles.

  The backdrop of Times Square is changing (always has been), and the afternoon I was there found droves of visitors sitting in traffic-free zones enjoying the atmosphere.  The mess of city traffic has been refined by new laws, and the change seems to have relaxed the crowds considerably.  The glitz of the overhead signage was still there, but the visual effect wasn’t drowned out by car, truck, taxi or bus  horns.

  The running joke for me about NYC is the presence of the Duane Reed pharmacy chain, competing with Starbucks for the most city corner presence.  I guess with millions of people in the city, you need a lot of places to get aspirin or a cup of coffee, so at least the business district is accommodating in that respect.

  If you can’t find what you want in New York City, you’re not looking in the right place.  There are stores of every kind, places to eat, drink, take the kids, take your date, take a break.  Movie houses have what appears to be the entire Hollywood repetoire in one location.  There are museums for everything, restaurants for every culture, fast food for every finicky palate, and more ways to part with your take home pay per square foot than microbes on the head of a pin.

  As for me, I have been going to the opera a lot lately, with plans to make a special trip to see Phantom of the Opera soon (not being one to give up my first love of live theatre).  No matter when I get into the city, I always seem to miss what happens with the Saturday theatre matinee crowd, because I’m away from the theatre district, at Lincoln Center, when the shows start.  When you go to opera productions that start at 12 or 1:00, it’s easy to forget that Broadway gets busy, and the streets probably get less packed, as patrons file into the theatres for the next big musical or that big visiting star doing a cameo in a production.  Around 5:00, the lobbies belch out happy crowds of tune humming tourists back into the heart of the city, and the restaurants do their part to feed them all.  I don’t bother with dinner, because the busses run on odd schedules that don’t allow time for even a quick fast food stop.  My day usually ends with prolonged standing for a seat on a bus out of town, but by then I’m blissfully exhausted and have been well exercised and entertained.

  It’s one interesting place to spend a Saturday.

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• Well Met?

  Posted at 12:11 am by kayewer, on May 16, 2011

  I have been an opera patron for about 15 years, and my first love is Richard Wagner’s epic Der Ring des Nibelungen (or simply The Ring).  In 2010 the Metropolitan Opera presented a new production of the 15-hour four-part opera, replacing a classic and much loved version directed by Otto Schenk that endured for 20 years.  This new version is the work of Robert Lepage.

  The key to the new production is “The Machine,” a 40-some-ton set of planks designed to rotate independently and serve as sets and backdrops for most of the action.  The planks tilt and undulate, and projections of oceans, mountains and forests add the depth of scenery.  In the first part of the Ring tetralogy (“Das Rheingold”), the mechanics failed on the maiden performance to configure into a bridge for the gods onstage to cross, so the performers were forced to simply walk off the stage at the climax.

  Like movie buffs, we opera goers know what we like, we watch for certain elements in a performance and can get testy when things don’t look right by our preconceived standards.  For example, it was not unusual for opera fans to boo Pavarotti at La Scala if they didn’t think he was performing well.   Some things one just can’t control in live theatre, but when a piece of machinery is the main source of your production’s entertainment value, mechanical flubs will get bad reviews as scathing as those for a bad tenor.

  In the Met’s next to last production of the 2010-2011 season, on May 14, the machine rebelled against the gods again.  This time, the mechanical behemoth caused a delay of 45 minutes in the start of a performance the Met was broadcasting to worldwide movie audiences as well as 4,000 patrons in the opera house.  I was one of the latter.

  After presenting tickets, the audience members milled about the lobby in increasingly oppressive heat (a lack of lobby ventilation/air conditioning, combined with 4,000 human bodies, is a bad combination).  An announcement came saying that–surprise– there was a delay.  Most of us knew right away that The Machine was to blame, though there were also concerns for conductor James Levine, who is a stalwart at the podium but in sub-perfect health.

  We were finally admitted to the auditorium by an apologetic staff about ten minutes past the scheduled start time, because they felt we would be cooler inside.  The crew was still at work on the planks.  The show started at 12:45 at last, and the planks appeared to function properly for the entire performance.

  The cause of the problem was attributed to the computerized communication system that keeps each plank properly aligned for each new configuration, but we were not told that by the Met staff.  The movie audience received that tidbit, and I learned it from the online news.

  So how was the performance?  Having been to a handful of complete Rings during the 20-year run of the Otto Schenk production, I find this version needs something more, but what is uncertain.

  It starts promisingly, with a pursuit through the plank’s projected stand of trees.  I particularly enjoyed Jonas Kaufmann as Siegmund and Hans-Peter Konig as wronged husband Hunding.  I’m still on the fence about Bryn Terfel’s take on the fountainhead of the gods Wotan, though he seems more powerful in this performance.  The proof of a good Wotan comes at the climax, in which the god renounces his own daughter and summons fire to surround the rock on which he has left her in a deep sleep.  Terfel strove hard to be torn between his roles as god and parent, and he gets points for that.  Stephanie Blythe plays Wotan’s wife Fricka, and her presence is stunning, especially when riding into a scene in a chariot flanked by golden rams.  She puts her husband in his place effectively.

  Also worth noting are the title Valkyries, eight warrior daughters and Brunnhilde heading the brood, all mighty women with powerful voices.  Their task is to bring dead heroes to Valhalla to protect the gods, but in this interpretation they must bag up the discarded bones of said heroes, which lay about the set.  I’ve seen versions in which they drag deadweight stunt doubles around, but this method didn’t seem necessary.

  At the climax of the production, Brunnhilde is suspended upside down on a wall of well-behaved planks, surrounded by projected flames, with a distraught Wotan taking a knee in front of the orchestra.  Some of the visual power was lacking from what is normally a profound scene.  That being said, I know that any new production needs to get its roots in before it blossoms, so I’m holding off on a thumbs down for now.  There are still two operas left, to come this fall and next spring.  The gods will fall, because it is in the script, but I hope the Met can make sure they don’t fall with them.

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• That “Not My Car” Smell

  Posted at 2:25 am by kayewer, on May 8, 2011

  When your car has to stay in the shop and they give you a rental, why is it that the vehicle is never by the same manufacturer?  You drive in with a crippled Beetle and leave the rental place with a Volvo.

  Rentals have improved over the years in terms of model and appeal, especially if you’re in need of one because yours is in for repairs.  In the old days, I found myself in some real  hoopties (or, for you older folk, jalopies).  I got to use a newer Nissan during a recent repair excursion.  At least it appears to be a 20-something year model.

  A car by another manufacturer has its own little quirks, and the renter doesn’t provide a guide beyond showing you where the obvious things are.    I’m used to everything being non-power on a car; I crank my windows and lean over the passenger seat to adjust the right mirror so objects are not in the spot you expect them to be on I-295 driving 65.  This car had power windows and side mirrors, and it had so many buttons on the steering wheel, I was worried I’d thump the wrong button with my hand by mistake and make passing truckers laugh at the silly lady driving with the flashers on.

  I learned quickly how to make sure the buttons worked when I wanted them to, like by leaving the key on without the ignition.  They don’t send you to Power Accessory Upgrade School for these things, you know.

  The symbols on the controls of some cars are hard to read.  I wanted to squirt some washer fluid on the windshield, but the curvy arrows on the turn signal wand didn’t provide a clue.  Sure, wipers are wipers in any car, but if I contorted the wand in the direction the symbol indicated just to shoot some liquid on the window, I’d have wrapped the wand around the steering column.  Fortunately I didn’t need the fluid badly enough to take the chance.

  The dashboard panel goes from a bright orange letter “P” when I’m parked to an orange “D” when I’m driving.  I don’t know why I need to see the obvious when I’m doing the shifting myself using a device next to my right leg that has the same lettering on it, but there you go.

  Cars have different ways of telling you how much gas you’re wasting on your trips.  My recent rental had a semi-circular row of orange squares that would vanish as the gallons disintegrated into the atmosphere.  My poor baby in the shop has a needle that sweeps from “F” to “E” quite effectively.  The rental agent asked me to return the car with four squares on the readout.  That’s easy to remember:  that’s my daily diet.

  Finally, a rental vehicle loses any sort of distinctive odor after a few different people have driven it.  The exception is if a driver smoked in the car.  The interior of a rental is spartan; no fuzzy dice on the rear view mirror, no CD in the player or spare change for the toll in one of those spring-rigged holders.  My rental did have an adjustable cup holder that can be shifted to accommodate two small drinks, two large drinks, or one small and one large drink.  They thought of everything.  I still took mine back from the shop and, even if this was the ploy the rental agency had in mind, I don’t think I’ll change car companies.  I have a few thousand miles of window cranking left in mine.

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• If You Can’t Say Something Nice

  Posted at 2:00 am by kayewer, on May 8, 2011

  Now that the dust has somewhat cleared, I wonder if it’s okay to say some things that are not negative about the late Osama bin Laden.  Don’t get all worked up about it.  I’m just saying that there are some things one can say about every human being, even him, that aren’t vitriolic.  Since God made us all, we should be able to find it in our hearts to use some emotionally neutral words to talk about even people whom many consider the most reviled human denizens of earth.

  We should remember that he was a human being like us all.  He started life, like we all did, as a baby in the care of a family who did what they felt was right to raise him to be an independent adult.  He had friends and an education.  He made good and bad choices, and many of the bad ones have become memorable worldwide.  His path in life took him into exile and ended with an untimely demise.

  Whatever the future of human relations may turn out to be, we will always remember this man as somebody who killed people to make a point.  It has never worked at any point in history, but he tried it anyway.  Battlefields have been rivers of blood since before recorded history, and not once has it made human beings any better than before the killings began.  After the innocent lives are taken, the perpetrator dies, too, at the hands of others if not by battle wounds or old age.  Innocent or guilty, death leaves no chance for redemption, no time to see what other paths are out there.

  It’s a shame that human beings do such things to each other.  The answers to why we do them are in a place we must die to get to.  In the United States we have been in emotional chaos for almost ten years, looking for the end of the pain caused by 9/11.  I hope that life provides more answers than death.

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• All the Single Ladies

  Posted at 2:57 am by kayewer, on May 1, 2011

  It’s bittersweet looking at the royal wedding from the POV of somebody unmarried.  Of course Prince William and his bride are destined to ascend to the height of the monarchy someday, unlike the common population.  That’s a bit of a burden nobody would experience in everyday life.

  The couple is stunningly attractive, have contact lists the size of the population of New York City and have grown up in the public eye and know how to interact with people.  The rest of us have to struggle with real life dating rituals and the months and years of heartache that go with them.

  The mysteries of how two people find each other and manage to spend years together as a legally and/or spiritually united couple aren’t always revealed to everybody.  As a result, some folks never survive marriage for more than a few months or years before attaching themselves to another mate, some circulate among many partners but don’t find the “right” one, and others never date at all.

  In my life I have seen beautiful people become miserable when married, plain or–dare I say, downright ugly– people find eternal happiness, and perfectly decent people somewhere in between who can’t make it off square one when it comes to the mating game.  It all seems to happen by accident, for good or bad, and either way has its own perks and problems.

  Weddings have become so lavish and ridiculously expensive, when it really seems to be about two people committing to each other and not who baked the cake or stamped their designer label on the gown.  Women who are obviously not virginal (sometimes they are already pregnant) wear white to the wedding.  In Vegas people can be married by a licensed Elvis impersonator.  Does any of that matter?

  The divorce rate in our country is high, which adds to the burden of the bills for the designer festooned wedding that takes years to pay off.  And let’s face it:  among the single people out there, it can be challenging to find and weed out the undesirables without getting your ego beaten up in the process.  What is wrong with the whole picture of marriage, when it’s so tough to get it right?

  I pass a few churches regularly, and I don’t see as many weddings as before.  It’s sad to think that we have to wait for royalty to tie the knot to see what should be a more familiar scene:  that of true love finding a way to make it happen and make it last.

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• What Be I Talkin’ ‘Bout?

  Posted at 2:22 am by kayewer, on April 24, 2011

  Does anybody use English anymore?  I spent long hours, days and years studying for an English degree, but nobody speaks it anymore.  The grammarian in me sometimes gets annoyed by little slips overheard in conversation.  As a writer, I always listen for inspiration.  Sometimes what I hear makes me cringe.

  The other day I heard three words–“Whey dey at?”–and my head rang with the grammar alarm.  A group of women posed the question in what can best be described as urban patois.  The difference between the correct usage (“Where are they?”) and what was said is not so much how three words are strung together, but in why the construction was so lazily loosed upon the world.

  Of course it takes a second more to pronounce the word “where.”  One can use the pronunciation “way” and drop the “r” or be thorough about it and say “wayer” and mean what they want to say.  A dropped “th” dipthong and an unnecessary tag (at) later, and we see a question of three words turned into an oral disaster.

  What would happen if the persons about whom they were inquiring were not “at” anyplace (not at the movies, at the store, at work)?  Maybe the poor comrades were outside in the rain waiting in line for concert tickets. Maybe they were in a taxi, on vacation, or something else not involving being at anyplace (except, perhaps, at large and not where expected).

  The difference between a “th” as in “they” and a “d” as in “dey” can place a person’s social status as surely as Eliza Doolittle’s colorful London slang did in My Fair Lady.  Drawling, twanging and other unique language constructions (we “New Juh-seyans” know about the Jersey twang all too well) don’t matter as much when the sentences spoken with them are correct.  Accents are easily forgiven, but mangled grammar will curl the edges of a Master’s degree every time.

  I do hope those ladies found out whey dey partners had been.  Just thinking about it makes my head spin.

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• The Signing Table

  Posted at 2:27 am by kayewer, on April 17, 2011

  As a writer, I look forward to someday being seated at a book signing.  It’s part of the publicity campaign for a book to have its author appear at public events and sign copies for interested fans and patrons, and naturally it can be an experience that overjoys, overwrings or grounds the writer in reality, depending on the size of the crowd that comes to your event.  Some folks get 5,000.  Others get the book store owner and the maintenance man.  I think that will, eventually, be me.

  Today a local columnist and author, Lisa Scottoline, is appearing at the local Barnes & Noble to sign copies of her newest fiction work.  It’s raining a gale outside, but I’m sure a line will be out the door to see her.  She has thousands of readers in the paper and untold numbers of book readers:  place them inside a bookstore and you’re likely to have a blast.

  I’m not there, of course:  I’m here, sitting at the cyber cafe writing about it.  Sure I’d like to go, but I know that standing in the rain, with my car parked in the only space available–out in the corner lot in no man’s land where I might return to find it set on cinder blocks–would not be conducive to a good meet and greet with an author.  Even though I know that she will be appearing at the second of her day’s stops after about 90 minutes of driving from the last event, and will probably be having the same type of bad hair day from the rain as I, why turn a book signing into a commiseration party in which we would all stand around and complain about the water damage to our shoes?

  I do plan to buy her book, though.

  And, if I ever get to that point in my writing career when I can drive 90 minutes to sit at a table and sign books, I’ll bring my umbrella, blow dryer and a roll of paper towels, because it does seem that every time a big event comes in my life, it rains.

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• Don’t Dis the Dunny

  Posted at 2:25 am by kayewer, on April 10, 2011

  Excuse me for using the Australian term for the bathroom.  The way people misuse restroom facilities irks me.  It’s on my top ten pet peeve list.

  I ended my work week with a flood coming from a locked maintenance closet in a men’s restroom.  The brackish water emanating from under that door ruined new carpeting on the lobby and leaked down a stairwell into the floor below, not to mention seeping under office doorways.  We were forced to evacuate the building in the rain and disable the elevators to avoid an electrical hazard.  Places that harbor water or waste should be respected and handled with more care.

  Not all people take that idea to heart, unfortunately.  Of all places to desecrate, religious buildings and bathrooms tend to get an unfair share.  There is nothing more disheartening than entering a bathroom and having to peer into two or more stalls before finding one good enough to use.  This is the most evident after a weekend, when maintenance crews may not clean as often.  I have seen seats left uninhabitable, and I pity the cleaning crew who has to deal with it.

  Maybe certain people are annoyed by the fact that they have to set their genitals over a hole in a seat and evacuate waste.  Sure, we’d all rather be elsewhere, but the few minutes it takes to “go” are not so bad in retrospect.  In fact, I can come up with some positive things to say about going to the bathroom:

  1)  Be glad you can go.  I know people with problems like diarrhea and constipation or bladder infections who wish they could just go normally.

  2) If you’re home, you can take a moment to read.  Come on, you all know you keep some reading somewhere near the toilet.

  3) If you’re at work, it’s a break you’re entitled to.  Of course, smoking or cell phone use is no longer allowed in most restrooms, but do you really want to multitask on the toilet?  Like the late George Carlin said, bathrooms are like elevators, in that there’s really nothing for you to do while you’re there.  It’s a mindless activity that at least gets you away from the cubicle.

  4) American bathrooms, for all the misuse, are among the best in the world.  Some countries still use squatting holes over trenches (I’ll never get the image of the toilets in  Slumdog Millionaire out of my mind).

  I don’t know what I would do if I caught somebody leaving a bathroom stall without policing their activities.  I’m afraid I would be likely to speak up and kindly remind them that they should straighten up the stall before they go.  I’d also probably get a response that Ce Lo Green would be proud of, but I feel we all have a right to a positive bathroom experience when not at home.

  So how did you leave a public restroom stall last time you had to go?

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• Charities: Mail I’d Like to Get

  Posted at 2:39 am by kayewer, on April 3, 2011

  It feels good to give to charities, especially ones that you know are legitimate and do things in keeping with your philosophies on how to make positive change in the world.

  The problem is, charities don’t know when to stop asking you for money.

  Once you contribute anything to a charity, they automatically send you an acknowledgment and enclose another form to send more money.  Sometimes mailings come 2-3 a week.  People don’t even get salaries weekly anymore (folks I know get bi-weekly pay, and then it’s direct deposit).

  Just once I’d like to receive a mailing like this:

  “Thank you for sending your $– check for our cause.  We used your donation to help ——- with their ——-.  They would not have gotten —— without your generosity.  Next month ——  will need our help with ——.  We look forward to contacting you then, and hope you can provide another donation to help them.  Meanwhile, enjoy the rest of your month, knowing you have helped somebody.”

  And what about the infamous anonymous person who will match every dollar contributed with two of their own?  Just give the charity the darn money:  you don’t have to tell us about it, even if it was given by the greatest humanitarian on the planet.  Just use what you’re given.

  The other thing that bugs me about begging mail is the guilt trip brought on by the gift items they enclose hoping you will feel obligated to “pay” for them.  I have enough pseudo-metal key chains to outfit a locksmith shop, more address labels than the most prolific letter writer could use in a lifetime, and enough scratch pads and greeting cards that I feel the senders must be solely responsible for deforestation.

  If everybody gave a penny to 100 charitable causes, those causes would have all the money they would need for a lot of good deeds.  Think about one penny, given by millions of  people,a nd what good it could do.  It’s just like my philosophy that the lottery would do better to give 350 people one million dollars than give one person 350 million dollars, but that’s for another topic.

  Anyway, I recycle all the junk mail from over-eager charities, and I give when I can.  That’s the idea:  if you have it to spare, give it.  Just don’t push the issue.

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• Do You Smell Something?

  Posted at 3:19 am by kayewer, on March 27, 2011

  There used to be a great product for removing scuff marks from shoes.  When you consider that a good pair of women’s shoes cost the equivalent of a BMW, a good scuff remover is a must-have accessory. Unfortunately they’re off the market, because teenagers were buying them to sniff the contents and get high.

  Bill Cosby mentioned in his comic routine that kids are brain damaged.  They develop at such an astounding rate, they don’t know what they’re doing half the time.  This fact, however, is no excuse for drug abuse.  It’s a shame that perfectly good products go away because they have huffing potential.

  But then, what do I know?  I don’t smoke or drink, nor have I felt the urge to try taking a deep breath of some chemical to see if my world looks better with toxic fumes swirling in my brain.

  Let me qualify the smoking part.  Back in junior high, I and a few cohorts got hold of some cigarettes and had at them.  Later, alone, I lit one up, but after seeing myself in the mirror holding it, I thought I looked completely idiotic.  Actresses like Bette Davis could blow smoke rings and make it look sexy.  I’m not Bettte Davis by a mile.  Such was my career as a smoker:  not starting meant I didn’t have to quit.

  I never could grasp the concept of artificial happiness brought on by synthetic compounds.  Sure, perfume is cool, but a scent doesn’t define people any more than shoe scuff remover can make life seem better by inhaling its odor.  We are so obsessed with our sense of smell that we overbathe and underplay how much odor can tell us.  Dogs can be trained to sniff out bedbugs, and we can know there is a fire at home by smelling smoke not caused by cigarettes.  We know dinner is on the stove (or microwave), the factory down the street is busy, or the seashore is minutes from our anxious bare toes.  Who needs to inhale chemical crap?

  Spend one day just smelling life.  It’s better than anything in a bottle.

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