Thierry Sagnier's Blog, page 50
April 8, 2014
My Ghetto Gym
I have been going to the gym since last November. I dutifully trudge on the elliptical for about 20 minutes, then I lift weights. I estimated that yesterday I lifted a total of 35,000 pounds in about half-an-hour, which I think is pretty impressive for a guy my age. I go to what friends have called a ghetto gym. It’s in a refurbished warehouse and has several dozen machines whose workings I have not yet fathomed. Its cleanliness is impeccable and insured by a small, round Latino man who may have been born with a canister vacuum on his back. I suspect he gets a better daily workout than do most of the gym’s clients. Seventeen large TVs hang from the ceiling, most of them showing ads for Dutch Master Cleaner, Ultra See-In-The-Dark Sunglasses and car title loan companies. Most gym-goers have earbuds in, but I don’t. I sort of like trying to guess what’s happening on the screen, and most times I think I’m wrong. Sometimes, though, there’s breaking news, and when that happens, a brief video of the story will appear as if on a tape loop. This morning, someone apparently hit a home run and was mobbed by a crowd of fans. The same clip was repeated nine times in 12 minutes. I am not sure what this means. Here is what my gym does not have: a sauna or steam room; tennis courts, a swimming pool, rowing machines, kettlebells, and complimentary anything including towels. This is a bring-your-stuff gym. Nor does it have the sort of über attractive people you see in gym ads; although there are a couple of massively built up, short guys with lots of tattoos, I have yet to see one of those model-types that is tanned, buffed, and completely free of body hair. I think the models may use the gyms downtown that cost a couple of hundred bucks a month. Mine’s only $10 a month, which gets me the machines, a drinking fountain, and the friendly face of Larry, a retired Verizon employee who runs the morning shift. My gym is a haven for palish middle-aged men and women with a few too many pounds, and a French pastry chef who, every time I talk with him, obsesses about the weather. Along with my gym attendance, I have started drinking a lot of water, some 64 ounces a day, not counting coffee or soda, which is OK as I don’t drink the latter. I have also eschewed refined sugar and flour, bagels, most red meats, artificial sweeteners and pastries, while trying to eat more green stuff. I have drawn the line at quinoa and kale, in any form. In spite of all these efforts and sacrifices, I can’t help but notice that I am not getting younger, nor becoming buffer or wrinkle free. My abs remain more barrel-like than six-packish. But I feel better. The ghetto gym is working a slow but inexorable miracle. I neither need nor want the far more expensive places, with their implicit promises of age reversal and surgery-free sag removal. Going to my ghetto gym makes me happier and, perhaps, more sociable. The pastry chef is a pleasant person with whom I get to chat in my native language, and he is happy now that spring is in the offing. I have passed some sort of test, and now the vacuum cleaner man no longer runs over my feet with his linoleum-polishing cart. Larry at the front desk logs me in without my even asking. I’m just another older grey-haired guy trying (without much success, I must admit) to lose a few pounds. And damn, I lifted 35,000 pounds yesterday! I complained that I had no shoes until I met a man who had no hat.
April 1, 2014
Greed and Need
By now we all know the statistics. In the 1950s, the head of a corporation made fifteen to twenty times as much as an average worker in that same company. Now, it’s not unusual for a CEO to make two to three hundred times as much as one of his workers, and be showered with bonuses, stock options, separation pay and other perquisites running into the millions of dollars. Possibly holding the current salary inequality record is Apple’s Tim Cook who in 2011 received six thousand two hundred and fifty-eight times the wage of an average Apple employee.
In a recent issue, The New Yorker magazine cited French economist Thomas Piketty as the co-author of a study on income inequality in the US from 1913 to 1998. The paper “detailed how the share of US national income taken by households at the top of the income distribution had risen sharply during the early decades of the 20th century, then fallen back during and after the Second World War, only to soar again in the nineteen-eighties and nineties.”
With the help of other researchers, Piketty showed how by 2012, the income share of the top one percent of the richest households was 22.5 percent of total income. When dealing with the stratospherically rich, the numbers almost defy description. The richest 85 people in the world--the Buffets, Gates and Waltons, the Kochs and Bloombergs--have “more wealth than the roughly 3.5 billion people who make up the poorest half of the world’s population.” The Waltons--Christy, Jim, Alice and S. Robson--by themselves have an estimated wealth of $135 billion. Yes, many of the über rich give heavily to causes and charity, but the percentage of the wealth they donate is minute compared to that of many far less wealthy Americans who routinely give at church and support a host of organizations in need.
This begs a few questions: How much money does an individual or a family need? Is there a morality issue involved here? Should the wealth of particular families be allowed to dwarf those of entire developing nations? Should we look a bit more closely at how income distribution affects the lives of millions?
The American middle-class is vanishing. Amazon is effectively killing off stores and rendering their employees jobless. Craig’s list has put the want ads out of business and, indirectly, newspapers. This in turn has left a swath of workers ranging from reporters and editors to sales forces and delivery people, without work. iTunes has killed the music distribution industry and the corner record store.
Whenever mentions of income inequalities arise, the shout of “Rich tax” soon follows. But further taxation of the rich and superrich will simply cause them to raise the prices of the wares they sell while freezing the wages of their employees. That, in the long run, won’t help. We’re dealing with greed here, as well as economics, and Friedrich Engels said it best, “From the first day to this, sheer greed was the driving spirit of civilization.” Greed works. Greed gave us Microsoft and PCs and Windows and Apple and Facebook and Amazon and Cisco.
But I can’t help thinking… Imagine, for a moment, the progresses that could have been made in medical research had the ingenuity of these innovators been applied to seeking a solution for cancer, or for Alzheimer’s. Now imagine what their money, properly applied today, could do!
In a recent issue, The New Yorker magazine cited French economist Thomas Piketty as the co-author of a study on income inequality in the US from 1913 to 1998. The paper “detailed how the share of US national income taken by households at the top of the income distribution had risen sharply during the early decades of the 20th century, then fallen back during and after the Second World War, only to soar again in the nineteen-eighties and nineties.”
With the help of other researchers, Piketty showed how by 2012, the income share of the top one percent of the richest households was 22.5 percent of total income. When dealing with the stratospherically rich, the numbers almost defy description. The richest 85 people in the world--the Buffets, Gates and Waltons, the Kochs and Bloombergs--have “more wealth than the roughly 3.5 billion people who make up the poorest half of the world’s population.” The Waltons--Christy, Jim, Alice and S. Robson--by themselves have an estimated wealth of $135 billion. Yes, many of the über rich give heavily to causes and charity, but the percentage of the wealth they donate is minute compared to that of many far less wealthy Americans who routinely give at church and support a host of organizations in need.
This begs a few questions: How much money does an individual or a family need? Is there a morality issue involved here? Should the wealth of particular families be allowed to dwarf those of entire developing nations? Should we look a bit more closely at how income distribution affects the lives of millions?
The American middle-class is vanishing. Amazon is effectively killing off stores and rendering their employees jobless. Craig’s list has put the want ads out of business and, indirectly, newspapers. This in turn has left a swath of workers ranging from reporters and editors to sales forces and delivery people, without work. iTunes has killed the music distribution industry and the corner record store.
Whenever mentions of income inequalities arise, the shout of “Rich tax” soon follows. But further taxation of the rich and superrich will simply cause them to raise the prices of the wares they sell while freezing the wages of their employees. That, in the long run, won’t help. We’re dealing with greed here, as well as economics, and Friedrich Engels said it best, “From the first day to this, sheer greed was the driving spirit of civilization.” Greed works. Greed gave us Microsoft and PCs and Windows and Apple and Facebook and Amazon and Cisco.
But I can’t help thinking… Imagine, for a moment, the progresses that could have been made in medical research had the ingenuity of these innovators been applied to seeking a solution for cancer, or for Alzheimer’s. Now imagine what their money, properly applied today, could do!
Greed and Need
By now we all know the statistics. In the 1950s, the head of a corporation made fifteen to twenty times as much as an average worker in that same company. Now, it’s not unusual for a CEO to make two to three hundred times as much as one of his workers, and be showered with bonuses, stock options, separation pay and other perquisites running into the millions of dollars. Possibly holding the current salary inequality record is Apple’s Tim Cook who in 2011 received six thousand two hundred and fifty-eight times the wage of an average Apple employee. In a recent issue, The New Yorker magazine cited French economist Thomas Piketty as the co-author of a study on income inequality in the US from 1913 to 1998. The paper “detailed how the share of US national income taken by households at the top of the income distribution had risen sharply during the early decades of the 20th century, then fallen back during and after the Second World War, only to soar again in the nineteen-eighties and nineties.” With the help of other researchers, Piketty showed how by 2012, the income share of the top one percent of the richest households was 22.5 percent of total income. When dealing with the stratospherically rich, the numbers almost defy description. The richest 85 people in the world--the Buffets, Gates and Waltons, the Kochs and Bloombergs--have “more wealth than the roughly 3.5 billion people who make up the poorest half of the world’s population.” The Waltons--Christy, Jim, Alice and S. Robson--by themselves have an estimated wealth of $135 billion. Yes, many of the über rich give heavily to causes and charity, but the percentage of the wealth they donate is minute compared to that of many far less wealthy Americans who routinely give at church and support a host of organizations in need. This begs a few questions: How much money does an individual or a family need? Is there a morality issue involved here? Should the wealth of particular families be allowed to dwarf those of entire developing nations? Should we look a bit more closely at how income distribution affects the lives of millions? The American middle-class is vanishing. Amazon is effectively killing off stores and rendering their employees jobless. Craig’s list has put the want ads out of business and, indirectly, newspapers. This in turn has left a swath of workers ranging from reporters and editors to sales forces and delivery people, without work. iTunes has killed the music distribution industry and the corner record store. Whenever mentions of income inequalities arise, the shout of “Rich tax” soon follows. But further taxation of the rich and superrich will simply cause them to raise the prices of the wares they sell while freezing the wages of their employees. That, in the long run, won’t help. We’re dealing with greed here, as well as economics, andFriedrich Engels said it best, “From the first day to this, sheer greed was the driving spirit of civilization.” Greed works. Greed gave us Microsoft and PCs and Windows and Apple and Facebook and Amazon and Cisco. But I can’t help thinking… Imagine, for a moment, the progresses that could have been made in medical research had the ingenuity of these innovators been applied to seeking a solution for cancer, or for Alzheimer’s. Now imagine what their money, properly applied today, could do! I complained that I had no shoes until I met a man who had no hat.
March 26, 2014
Truth in Advertising
I am tired of overly beautiful people peddling crap. Not that I’ve ever met any in real life; I haven’t because they don’t really exist, all these perfect-haired, perfect-abbed and zitless avatars that crowd our world and sell us stuff. I’m referring to the models and actors, male and female, young and old, pitching cars and pills and mortgages, wireless service and hemorrhoid ointment and companies that will take your money and invest it better than you ever could, except maybe sometimes not. And it’s not only Victoria’s Secret wannabes. It’s perfect men, too, whose shoulder-width-to-waist-size ratio was never God-given. Oh, and before I forget, all those perfectly cute children that never dirtied a diaper or bashed a sibling on the head with a Tickle Me Elmo. They’re three years old and talk in the subjunctive without even being French.
Sometime and somewhere, someone managed to persuade us that listening to these physically admirable folks and taking their advice would make us look like them and enjoy their lifestyles, which are monumentally better than ours. This was an amazing piece of manipulation that, in spite of our best efforts, still works like a charm. We are besieged with perfect grandparents in assisted living situations when we know and remember perfectly well how arduous and emotionally draining it was getting gramps into the Sunshine Hollow efficiency apartment after gamma passed away. And of course, we’re completely aware that the big-busted and roundly-hipped model promoting shampoo had her hair professionally attended to before shooting the ad. Women buyers of the product will not, ever, look like her. No more than men who purchase that masculine smelling bodywash will trek the Himalayas tomorrow. And yet…
Perhaps it’s the insincerity of it all that bothers me. I wonder if it isn’t time to force advertisers to come clean, like the drug companies selling anti-depressants. They can’t simply say. “Take Elaterada and be happy the rest of your life.” The FDA stepped in after too many Elaterada users became addicts, or killed themselves, or turned green, and now the ads will include a perfectly female monotonic voice reciting the possible side-effects of the concoction. “Elaterada may cause stomach upset, nausea, fatigue, headache, tremor, nervousness and dry mouth, postural blood pressure changes resulting in dizziness, constipation, difficulty urinating, blurred vision, weight gain and drowsiness, rapid heartbeat, dilated pupils, flushed face and agitation, confusion, loss of consciousness, seizures, irregular heart rate, cardiorespiratory collapse and death. Do not eat cheese, meat, chicken, green vegetables, nuts, or aged cheese when taking Elaterada. Do not drive 18-wheelers or operate construction equipment.(Cut to music) Be happy again with Elaterada.”
Imagine if the ad trying to sell you a new and overpowered SUV ended with an overweight man staring into the camera and saying, “Buying the XRV-16 may lead to unsafe driving, speeding, traffic tickets, fines and imprisonment or death of you or others. Do not drive the XRV-16 when drunk or high on legal or illegal drugs. Do not engage in texting, sexting or sex while driving. Driving the XRV-16 is not suggested for insulin-dependent diabetics, people with fibromyalgia, irregular heartbeat, memory loss, weak kidneys, ulcerated stomach linings or any issue named in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM IV).”
Truth in advertising. Personally, I’d find that really entertaining.
Sometime and somewhere, someone managed to persuade us that listening to these physically admirable folks and taking their advice would make us look like them and enjoy their lifestyles, which are monumentally better than ours. This was an amazing piece of manipulation that, in spite of our best efforts, still works like a charm. We are besieged with perfect grandparents in assisted living situations when we know and remember perfectly well how arduous and emotionally draining it was getting gramps into the Sunshine Hollow efficiency apartment after gamma passed away. And of course, we’re completely aware that the big-busted and roundly-hipped model promoting shampoo had her hair professionally attended to before shooting the ad. Women buyers of the product will not, ever, look like her. No more than men who purchase that masculine smelling bodywash will trek the Himalayas tomorrow. And yet…
Perhaps it’s the insincerity of it all that bothers me. I wonder if it isn’t time to force advertisers to come clean, like the drug companies selling anti-depressants. They can’t simply say. “Take Elaterada and be happy the rest of your life.” The FDA stepped in after too many Elaterada users became addicts, or killed themselves, or turned green, and now the ads will include a perfectly female monotonic voice reciting the possible side-effects of the concoction. “Elaterada may cause stomach upset, nausea, fatigue, headache, tremor, nervousness and dry mouth, postural blood pressure changes resulting in dizziness, constipation, difficulty urinating, blurred vision, weight gain and drowsiness, rapid heartbeat, dilated pupils, flushed face and agitation, confusion, loss of consciousness, seizures, irregular heart rate, cardiorespiratory collapse and death. Do not eat cheese, meat, chicken, green vegetables, nuts, or aged cheese when taking Elaterada. Do not drive 18-wheelers or operate construction equipment.(Cut to music) Be happy again with Elaterada.”
Imagine if the ad trying to sell you a new and overpowered SUV ended with an overweight man staring into the camera and saying, “Buying the XRV-16 may lead to unsafe driving, speeding, traffic tickets, fines and imprisonment or death of you or others. Do not drive the XRV-16 when drunk or high on legal or illegal drugs. Do not engage in texting, sexting or sex while driving. Driving the XRV-16 is not suggested for insulin-dependent diabetics, people with fibromyalgia, irregular heartbeat, memory loss, weak kidneys, ulcerated stomach linings or any issue named in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM IV).”
Truth in advertising. Personally, I’d find that really entertaining.
Truth in Advertising
I am tired of overly beautiful people peddling crap. Not that I’ve ever met any in real life; I haven’t because they don’t really exist, all these perfect-haired, perfect-abbed and zitless avatars that crowd our world and sell us stuff. I’m referring to the models and actors, male and female, young and old, pitching cars and pills and mortgages, wireless service and hemorrhoid ointment and companies that will take your money and invest it better than you ever could, except maybe sometimes not. And it’s not only Victoria’s Secret wannabes. It’s perfect men, too, whose shoulder-width-to-waist-size ratio was never God-given. Oh, and before I forget, all those perfectly cute children that never dirtied a diaper or bashed a sibling on the head with a Tickle Me Elmo. They’re three years old and talk in the subjunctive without even being French. Sometime and somewhere, someone managed to persuade us that listening to these physically admirable folks and taking their advice would make us look like them and enjoy their lifestyles, which are monumentally better than ours. This was an amazing piece of manipulation that, in spite of our best efforts, still works like a charm. We are besieged with perfect grandparents in assisted living situations when we know and remember perfectly well how arduous and emotionally draining it was getting gramps into the Sunshine Hollow efficiency apartment after gamma passed away. And of course, we’re completely aware that the big-busted and roundly-hipped model promoting shampoo had her hair professionally attended to before shooting the ad. Women buyers of the product will not, ever, look like her. No more than men who purchase that masculine smelling bodywash will trek the Himalayas tomorrow. And yet… Perhaps it’s the insincerity of it all that bothers me. I wonder if it isn’t time to force advertisers to come clean, like the drug companies selling anti-depressants. They can’t simply say. “Take Elaterada and be happy the rest of your life.” The FDA stepped in after too many Elaterada users became addicts, or killed themselves, or turned green, and now the ads will include a perfectly female monotonic voice reciting the possible side-effects of the concoction. “Elaterada may cause stomach upset, nausea, fatigue, headache, tremor, nervousness and dry mouth, postural blood pressure changes resulting in dizziness, constipation, difficulty urinating, blurred vision, weight gain and drowsiness, rapid heartbeat, dilated pupils, flushed face and agitation, confusion, loss of consciousness, seizures, irregular heart rate, cardiorespiratory collapse and death. Do not eat cheese, meat, chicken, green vegetables, nuts, or aged cheese when taking Elaterada. Do not drive 18-wheelers or operate construction equipment.(Cut to music) Be happy again with Elaterada.”
Imagine if the ad trying to sell you a new and overpowered SUV ended with an overweight man staring into the camera and saying, “Buying the XRV-16 may lead to unsafe driving, speeding, traffic tickets, fines and imprisonment or death of you or others. Do not drive the XRV-16 when drunk or high on legal or illegal drugs. Do not engage in texting, sexting or sex while driving. Driving the XRV-16 is not suggested for insulin-dependent diabetics, people with fibromyalgia, irregular heartbeat, memory loss, weak kidneys, ulcerated stomach linings or any issue named in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM IV).” Truth in advertising. Personally, I’d find that really entertaining.I complained that I had no shoes until I met a man who had no hat.
March 21, 2014
Annex Canada!
Russia’s annexation of Crimea is abominable and disgraceful. As a country that wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing, ever and under any circumstances, I think we need to retaliate and send a strong message to the Madman Putin. I therefore offer a suggestion. We should annex Canada.
Canada is a large landmass to the north of the United States. Few people ever think about this, but like Crimea, our neighbor is deeply divided. The Canadian French and English speakers have a long history of animosity towards each other and we should step in, for their own good.
Why, you might ask, don’t we annex Mexico instead? After all, it’s sunny there, the food is somewhat interesting if you like refried things of questionable origins, there are beaches, and a goodly part of the population already works in the States in largely menial capacities. Well, the fact is many Mexicans speak neither English nor French, which would make basic communications difficult. Plus, Mexico is overrun with drug cartels and criminals with no respect for human life. We don’t need people like that in our society. And lastly, any country that has Montezuma’s Revenge as part of its national heritage can’t really be taken seriously.
We don’t need to annex all of Canada, just the Quebec province. The unfortunate people of Quebec have long been held in submission to the Montreal yoke and the separatist movement there has failed ignominiously. The brave and subjugated Québécois need our help.
Consider the fact that we have a long history of amicable relations with the French. Their culture is very close to ours and without the arrival of Lafayette to our shores in 1777, we would all be speaking The Queen’s English today.
Additionally, the French have given us:
• French toast
• Les Misérables
• The Chateaubriand, a hefty slice of rare meat named after one of their best writers
• Brigitte Bardot, before she went quite mad
• Cinéma Noir
• Foie Gras
• Windsurfing
• Bic pens and lighters
• French maids who don’t do much but look very sexy
• The moped
• The Tour de France
• Fernandel (and shame on you if you don’t know the name of perhaps the best comic actor of Marseillais origins)
• Bouillabaisse
• Gitane and Gauloise cigarettes
• Louis Pasteur and Coco Chanel
• Dominique Strauss Kahn (for his sheer absurdity and entertainment value)
• The ménage à trois or more (see above)
• The Olympics
• Face transplants
• The Metric system
• Deconstructionism
• The words cliché and escargot.
Admittedly, none of the above originated in Canada or in Quebec, but I am sure the suffering Québécois are proud of sharing a language and cultural assets with such an illustrious people as the French.
We should act before some other nation gets the same idea. It would send a clear message to Putin.
Canada is a large landmass to the north of the United States. Few people ever think about this, but like Crimea, our neighbor is deeply divided. The Canadian French and English speakers have a long history of animosity towards each other and we should step in, for their own good.
Why, you might ask, don’t we annex Mexico instead? After all, it’s sunny there, the food is somewhat interesting if you like refried things of questionable origins, there are beaches, and a goodly part of the population already works in the States in largely menial capacities. Well, the fact is many Mexicans speak neither English nor French, which would make basic communications difficult. Plus, Mexico is overrun with drug cartels and criminals with no respect for human life. We don’t need people like that in our society. And lastly, any country that has Montezuma’s Revenge as part of its national heritage can’t really be taken seriously.
We don’t need to annex all of Canada, just the Quebec province. The unfortunate people of Quebec have long been held in submission to the Montreal yoke and the separatist movement there has failed ignominiously. The brave and subjugated Québécois need our help.
Consider the fact that we have a long history of amicable relations with the French. Their culture is very close to ours and without the arrival of Lafayette to our shores in 1777, we would all be speaking The Queen’s English today.
Additionally, the French have given us:
• French toast
• Les Misérables
• The Chateaubriand, a hefty slice of rare meat named after one of their best writers
• Brigitte Bardot, before she went quite mad
• Cinéma Noir
• Foie Gras
• Windsurfing
• Bic pens and lighters
• French maids who don’t do much but look very sexy
• The moped
• The Tour de France
• Fernandel (and shame on you if you don’t know the name of perhaps the best comic actor of Marseillais origins)
• Bouillabaisse
• Gitane and Gauloise cigarettes
• Louis Pasteur and Coco Chanel
• Dominique Strauss Kahn (for his sheer absurdity and entertainment value)
• The ménage à trois or more (see above)
• The Olympics
• Face transplants
• The Metric system
• Deconstructionism
• The words cliché and escargot.
Admittedly, none of the above originated in Canada or in Quebec, but I am sure the suffering Québécois are proud of sharing a language and cultural assets with such an illustrious people as the French.
We should act before some other nation gets the same idea. It would send a clear message to Putin.
Anex Canada!
Russia’s annexation of Crimea is abominable and disgraceful. As a country that wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing, ever and under any circumstances, I think we need to retaliate and send a strong message to the Madman Putin. I therefore offer a suggestion. We should annex Canada. Canada is a large landmass to the north of the United States. Few people ever think about this, but like Crimea, our neighbor is deeply divided. The Canadian French and English speakers have a long history of animosity towards each other and we should step in, for their own good. Why, you might ask, don’t we annex Mexico instead? After all, it’s sunny there, the food is somewhat interesting if you like refried things of questionable origins, there are beaches, and a goodly part of the population already works in the States in largely menial capacities. Well, the fact is many Mexicans speak neither English nor French, which would make basic communications difficult. Plus, Mexico is overrun with drug cartels and criminals with no respect for human life. We don’t need people like that in our society. And lastly, any country that has Montezuma’s Revenge as part of its national heritage can’t really be taken seriously. We don’t need to annex all of Canada, just the Quebec province. The unfortunate people of Quebec have long been held in submission to the Montreal yoke and the separatist movement there has failed ignominiously. The brave and subjugated Québécois need our help. Consider the fact that we have a long history of amicable relations with the French. Their culture is very close to ours and without the arrival of Lafayette to our shores in 1777, we would all be speaking The Queen’s English today. Additionally, the French have given us: French toastLes MisérablesThe Chateaubriand, a hefty slice of rare meat named after one of their best writersBrigitte Bardot, before she went quite madCinéma NoirFoie GrasWindsurfingBic pens and lightersFrench maids who don’t do much but look very sexy The mopedThe Tour de FranceFernandel (and shame on you if you don’t know the name of perhaps the best comic actor of Marseillais origins) BouillabaisseGitane and Gauloise cigarettesLouis Pasteur and Coco ChanelDominique Strauss Kahn (for his sheer absurdity and entertainment value)The ménage à trois or more (see above)The Olympics Face transplantsThe Metric systemDeconstructionismThe words cliché and escargot. Admittedly, none of the above originated in Canada or in Quebec, but I am sure the suffering Québécois are proud of sharing a language and cultural assets with such an illustrious people as the French. We should act before some other nation gets the same idea. It would send a clear message to Putin. I complained that I had no shoes until I met a man who had no hat.
March 16, 2014
The Opera
I went to the opera yesterday, a Simulcast from the Met in New York of Jules Massenet’s Werther. This was a lovely birthday gift from my buddy P and his wife. We were accompanied by a young couple who had never witnessed an opera, and were apparently taken by it. For me, the experience was fascinating because the last opera I saw was some 20 years ago, a dreadful production of Carmen Jones, which left me persuaded that opera was indeed--and deserved to be--dead.
Not so with Werther, a truly lush production with gorgeous yet simple backdrops. The plot is simple. Werther, a depressive poet with a penchant for self-destruction, falls in love with Charlotte, a young woman who is engaged to Albert, a soldier. Over a time span of almost three hours, Werther declares his undying devotion to Charlotte maybe a dozen times, threatens suicide, disappears, reappears, and finally shoots himself in the chest with a pistol. He is obviously a very poor shot as he misses his own heart and lingers painfully as Charlotte looks on, and begs God to save what she comes to recognize as the love of her life. She presses on the gunshot wound, though I am not sure if it is to hasten Werther’s demise or staunch the flow of his theatrically red blood. At any rate, almost the entirety of the fourth act is devoted to the poet’s death throes during which he falls to the ground, struggles to stand, falls again, is assisted to his feet by Charlotte, falls a third time, crawls about a bit, and finally expires.
As this was occurring, a spectator in a nearby row (a woman, I think), sobbed and sniffled helplessly, and at the climactic moment, the sound went out. This opera was being broadcast live to an audience in the hundreds of thousands in some 600 venues worldwide, each and every one of which went quiet during the grand finale.
The cast was lead by two of the greatest voices performing today, French mezzo-soprano Sophie Koch, and German tenor Jonas Kauffman, both born in 1969. They made the work effortlessly their own and were rewarded by standing ovations and shredded programs tossed in the air by the admiring crowd. I am told this, opera-wise, is the ultimate compliment an audience can pay performers.
Attending a Simulcast of this type is both mesmerizing and somewhat challenging. The audience is old, 70s and above, and heaven help a spectator who has to absent himself once the aficionados are seated. They do not like to move. Sidling towards the aisle is a twinkle-toes exercise in avoiding size 13 brogans firmly planted and resolutely obstructive. I tripped twice and narrowly avoided sprawling on several ancient laps.
You can eat popcorn during the show. Pizza is also available, as are hot dogs and for all I know pastrami sandwiches. I dropped and spilled my bag of popcorn when I was halfway done but luckily had a secret stash of Sour Patch Kids candy.
Opera, I decided, is an art form where insane characters lurch around the stage in despair over everyday situations. I heard at least one spectator tell Werther to get over it, sh*t happens. One might even be tempted to suggest Werther and Charlotte do the deed and be done with it. No one will find out as they’re all singing Christmas carols or crooning odes to Bacchus.
Lastly, in opera, where the music is gorgeous and moving, the words are often at best banal. A section devoted to the effervescent beauty of nature and happy innocence of small children was lovely, even as the actual phrases and wording used bordered on the trite. I was also struck by the fact that Massenet wrote Werther in French, yet the work was largely incomprehensible to a French speaker (me). I had to rely on the subtitles.
Simulcasting may very well be opera’s savior as live productions are staggeringly costly, which of course is reflected in ticket prices for live shows. Simulcast allows opera fans to
view the spectacles without going bankrupt themselves. This is good. My grandfather wrote operas and I never got to attend one. Who knows, with the miracle of Simulcast, maybe one day I’ll be able to eat popcorn and watch one.
Not so with Werther, a truly lush production with gorgeous yet simple backdrops. The plot is simple. Werther, a depressive poet with a penchant for self-destruction, falls in love with Charlotte, a young woman who is engaged to Albert, a soldier. Over a time span of almost three hours, Werther declares his undying devotion to Charlotte maybe a dozen times, threatens suicide, disappears, reappears, and finally shoots himself in the chest with a pistol. He is obviously a very poor shot as he misses his own heart and lingers painfully as Charlotte looks on, and begs God to save what she comes to recognize as the love of her life. She presses on the gunshot wound, though I am not sure if it is to hasten Werther’s demise or staunch the flow of his theatrically red blood. At any rate, almost the entirety of the fourth act is devoted to the poet’s death throes during which he falls to the ground, struggles to stand, falls again, is assisted to his feet by Charlotte, falls a third time, crawls about a bit, and finally expires.
As this was occurring, a spectator in a nearby row (a woman, I think), sobbed and sniffled helplessly, and at the climactic moment, the sound went out. This opera was being broadcast live to an audience in the hundreds of thousands in some 600 venues worldwide, each and every one of which went quiet during the grand finale.
The cast was lead by two of the greatest voices performing today, French mezzo-soprano Sophie Koch, and German tenor Jonas Kauffman, both born in 1969. They made the work effortlessly their own and were rewarded by standing ovations and shredded programs tossed in the air by the admiring crowd. I am told this, opera-wise, is the ultimate compliment an audience can pay performers.
Attending a Simulcast of this type is both mesmerizing and somewhat challenging. The audience is old, 70s and above, and heaven help a spectator who has to absent himself once the aficionados are seated. They do not like to move. Sidling towards the aisle is a twinkle-toes exercise in avoiding size 13 brogans firmly planted and resolutely obstructive. I tripped twice and narrowly avoided sprawling on several ancient laps.
You can eat popcorn during the show. Pizza is also available, as are hot dogs and for all I know pastrami sandwiches. I dropped and spilled my bag of popcorn when I was halfway done but luckily had a secret stash of Sour Patch Kids candy.
Opera, I decided, is an art form where insane characters lurch around the stage in despair over everyday situations. I heard at least one spectator tell Werther to get over it, sh*t happens. One might even be tempted to suggest Werther and Charlotte do the deed and be done with it. No one will find out as they’re all singing Christmas carols or crooning odes to Bacchus.
Lastly, in opera, where the music is gorgeous and moving, the words are often at best banal. A section devoted to the effervescent beauty of nature and happy innocence of small children was lovely, even as the actual phrases and wording used bordered on the trite. I was also struck by the fact that Massenet wrote Werther in French, yet the work was largely incomprehensible to a French speaker (me). I had to rely on the subtitles.
Simulcasting may very well be opera’s savior as live productions are staggeringly costly, which of course is reflected in ticket prices for live shows. Simulcast allows opera fans to
view the spectacles without going bankrupt themselves. This is good. My grandfather wrote operas and I never got to attend one. Who knows, with the miracle of Simulcast, maybe one day I’ll be able to eat popcorn and watch one.
The Opera
I went to the opera yesterday, a Simulcast from the Met in New York of Jules Massenet’s Werther. This was a lovely birthday gift from my buddy P and his wife. We were accompanied by a young couple who had never witnessed an opera, and were apparently taken by it. For me, the experience was fascinating because the last opera I saw was some 20 years ago, a dreadful production of Carmen Jones, which left me persuaded that opera was indeed--and deserved to be--dead. Not so with Werther, a truly lush production with gorgeous yet simple backdrops. The plot is simple. Werther, a depressive poet with a penchant for self-destruction, falls in love with Charlotte, a young woman who is engaged to Albert, a soldier. Over a time span of almost three hours, Werther declares his undying devotion to Charlotte maybe a dozen times, threatens suicide, disappears, reappears, and finally shoots himself in the chest with a pistol. He is obviously a very poor shot as he misses his own heart and lingers painfully as Charlotte looks on, and begs God to save what she comes to recognize as the love of her life. She presses on the gunshot wound, though I am not sure if it is to hasten Werther’s demise or staunch the flow of his theatrically red blood. At any rate, almost the entirety of the fourth act is devoted to the poet’s death throes during which he falls to the ground, struggles to stand, falls again, is assisted to his feet by Charlotte, falls a third time, crawls about a bit, and finally expires. As this was occurring, a spectator in a nearby row (a woman, I think), sobbed and sniffled helplessly, and at the climactic moment, the sound went out. This opera was being broadcast live to an audience in the hundreds of thousands in some 600 venues worldwide, each and every one of which went quiet during the grand finale. The cast was lead by two of the greatest voices performing today, French mezzo-soprano Sophie Koch, and German tenor Jonas Kauffman, both born in 1969. They made the work effortlessly their own and were rewarded by standing ovations and shredded programs tossed in the air by the admiring crowd. I am told this, opera-wise, is the ultimate compliment an audience can pay performers. Attending a Simulcast of this type is both mesmerizing and somewhat challenging. The audience is old, 70s and above, and heaven help a spectator who has to absent himself once the aficionados are seated. They do not like to move. Sidling towards the aisle is a twinkle-toes exercise in avoiding size 13 brogans firmly planted and resolutely obstructive. I tripped twice and narrowly avoided sprawling on several ancient laps. You can eat popcorn during the show. Pizza is also available, as are hot dogs and for all I know pastrami sandwiches. I dropped and spilled my bag of popcorn when I was halfway done but luckily had a secret stash of Sour Patch Kids candy. Opera, I decided, is an art form where insane characters lurch around the stage in despair over everyday situations. I heard at least one spectator tell Werther to get over it, sh*t happens. One might even be tempted to suggest Werther and Charlotte do the deed and be done with it. No one will find out as they’re all singing Christmas carols or crooning odes to Bacchus. Lastly, in opera, where the music is gorgeous and moving, the words are often at best banal. A section devoted to the effervescent beauty of nature and happy innocence of small children was lovely, even as the actual phrases and wording used bordered on the trite. I was also struck by the fact that Massenet wrote Werther in French, yet the work was largely incomprehensible to a French speaker (me). I had to rely on the subtitles. Simulcasting may very well be opera’s savior as live productions are staggeringly costly, which of course is reflected in ticket prices for live shows. Simulcast allows opera fans to view the spectacles without going bankrupt themselves. This is good. My grandfather wrote operas and I never got to attend one. Who knows, with the miracle of Simulcast, maybe one day I’ll be able to eat popcorn and watch one. I complained that I had no shoes until I met a man who had no hat.
March 14, 2014
Thanks
How many times a day do you say “thank you?” You thank the barista who hands you a morning coffee, the waiter and busperson, the parking lot guy, the woman who holds the elevator for you, and you hand-signal a thanks to the driver who lets you cut in.
By doing so, you establish a momentary relationship. You, the thank-giver, and the other person, the thank-recipient, have done something together that benefitted both parties--one gave, the other took, with gratitude--and was promptly forgotten. For a brief moment, the two of you reverted to an earlier age when the culture of thanking was well-established, at least among peers.
Thanking now is largely automatic. If it’s accompanied by a smile, we might smile back, or not. We’ll note a lack of manners when letting someone cut in line doesn’t elicit the basic thanks…
Me, I’ve always been fascinated by the phrase, “Thank God.”
Thank God? Why? Does God need our thanks for moving, as he/she/it does, in mysterious ways? More to the point, will God get pissed off if we don’t thank him/she/it for whatever we think he thinks (not a typo) we should thank him for (if he does, which I doubt), and anyway, how are we supposed to know what to thank him for in the first place. Think about this long enough and you’ll get a migraine. Suddenly, thanking becomes a massively complex undertaking.
And what if God suddenly realizes we’re just hypocrites (which, being an all-knowing God, he/she/it was aware of all along) giving thanks simply to cover out asses, because really, are we sure about thanking a Higher Power for all the strange stuff going on? What about Aunt Myrtle’s cancer, or Uncle Jim’s gout? Should we be thankful we don’t have the same afflictions? And doesn’t that make us really crappy people, thinking thoughts like that?
So I don’t have any answers. I seldom do. But I welcome other people’s thoughts.
Thanks.
By doing so, you establish a momentary relationship. You, the thank-giver, and the other person, the thank-recipient, have done something together that benefitted both parties--one gave, the other took, with gratitude--and was promptly forgotten. For a brief moment, the two of you reverted to an earlier age when the culture of thanking was well-established, at least among peers.
Thanking now is largely automatic. If it’s accompanied by a smile, we might smile back, or not. We’ll note a lack of manners when letting someone cut in line doesn’t elicit the basic thanks…
Me, I’ve always been fascinated by the phrase, “Thank God.”
Thank God? Why? Does God need our thanks for moving, as he/she/it does, in mysterious ways? More to the point, will God get pissed off if we don’t thank him/she/it for whatever we think he thinks (not a typo) we should thank him for (if he does, which I doubt), and anyway, how are we supposed to know what to thank him for in the first place. Think about this long enough and you’ll get a migraine. Suddenly, thanking becomes a massively complex undertaking.
And what if God suddenly realizes we’re just hypocrites (which, being an all-knowing God, he/she/it was aware of all along) giving thanks simply to cover out asses, because really, are we sure about thanking a Higher Power for all the strange stuff going on? What about Aunt Myrtle’s cancer, or Uncle Jim’s gout? Should we be thankful we don’t have the same afflictions? And doesn’t that make us really crappy people, thinking thoughts like that?
So I don’t have any answers. I seldom do. But I welcome other people’s thoughts.
Thanks.
