Spring in the Offing in Texas

A professor is someone who talks in somebody else's sleep.
W.H. Auden

Friday, February 18, 2011

Since my last rants the arctic jet stream has resumed its more natural northern path and allowed Texas to return to warm nights and warmer days. Today dawned with overcast drizzle as if the weather gods, unsure of what they wanted, settled for a grimace rather than a scowl. After the shock of all that intense cold nature is in a holding pattern seemingly deciding whether it’s safe to unleash spring. The restaurant next door set up a canopy to shelter the Valentines Lovebirds in so doing scaring off the winged creatures that frequent my feeders.

Having posted reviews of the cultural events I’ve attended I’ll not repeat myself here. Once more I’ll repeat that I find the practice of people here showing up five minutes late or more for concerts rude to their fellow audience members and the performers. I was rather disgusted when I finally got my bike out again to sustain a flat tire on my first ride. I did manage to get to the bank and pick up some groceries while I was out. I seem to be attempting to see how long I can go without doing laundry but sooner of later....

After missing two choir rehearsals I finally made it to church this past Sunday to sing with the Men’s Chorale. We received rave reviews from the congregation for a number I don’t particularly like that we’ve been repeating one way or another since before Christmas. Austin seems to be a go with the flo kind of place so I responded favourably when I got a last minute invite to join my fellow bass part singer for an afternoon of Jazz with the Austin Traditional Jazz Society, Huh? Turns out that’s Dixieland Jazz and the concert in the Cap City Comedy Club lasted three hours with drinks and food served while we listened. Before my next visit I’ll make inquiries as to what the regulars recommend, I made bad choices. The Jazz Pharoahs have been riffing with each other long enough to comfortably transition from solo to group improvisation seamlessly. They played a lot of numbers even I recognized. Audience members put on their own show on dance floors on either side of the stage. Some of those dance moves were rather more aerobic than others one dancer when asked replying when asked what he was doing next, going home for a shower. Although the majority of regular club members appeared to be well on in years a number of college-age students were in attendance.

As I write this two couples who are my temporary neighbours are communicating in sign language. For everyone ever put out by a cell phone ringing during a concert comes word on NPR’s Composer’s Datebook of a symphony performance based on audience members’ ringing phones. If St. John’s can do it with ships horns why not.

Got out at last Wednesday to get my bike tube replaced, then visited Best Buy for a few DVD’s. Remarkable the price spread between different chains on each side of the border and release dates for the same show. I had to talk to 4 people to find the computer that printed my discount coupon. I do wish movies weren’t segregated into so many genres--how does one tell whether a show is comedy, drama, action, horror, documentary, family, special interest. All too often it depends on where there is most room.

Finally made it to a Barnes and Noble big box store after shopping for E-Books online for nearly two years. In Austin all five stores are in regional malls, Borders which were downtown are in Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It may be a large cookie cutter but I had that impression upon entering. Were I in Canada I could have mistaken this store for a Chapters were it not for the missing scented candles and other non-literary clap trap. Same non-alphabetically shelved books, harried short-staffed clerks, checkout line-ups, slow search computers, single copies in stock but impossible to find, discrepancy between instore and online pricing, well-thumbed magazine section. With the American Dollar worth only 98¢ Canadian why is a mass-market paperback published in Canada $6.99 here and $9.99 in Canada? How can a store groaning with books not have the ones I’m looking for in stock?

Someone pointed out a possum walking along the top of the fence row between my RV and the adjoining patio. He was playing possum in the fire thorn hedge.

Nature it seems still believes in the process of natural selection. Three of four yahoos gunning their snowmobiles up the side of a Mountain in the Canadian Rockies didn’t survive the avalanche they caused when they brought down the mountain on top of themselves. Duh!

Fiction

The Whisenhunt Theatre at the Zach is theatre-in-the-round or strictly speaking octogon but despite two curtain calls at the end of the night the three actors ignored the east and west sections of the audience.

Fiction has three characters all of whom are writers. A husband and wife and the gal at the writer’s workshop with whom he has a dalliance. Given the theatre configuration the set consisted of an end table, a number of chairs, and several storage containers that held props. Perversely I called to memory a play staged by Larry Solway at the Oakville Centre in which he played a writer whose bookshelves on stage contained 74 dictionaries, I suppose the slowest moving items the local Whites Bookstore was willing to loan. At the time I found that more disgusting than the fact that he walked off stage at one point displaying his naked buttocks.

The husky-looking boy-next-door Robert Gomes does not look the part of a starving writer though at 5’ 11’ 180 pounds he may be too small to be a running back. In the course of the play we learn his penchant for beer in brown bottles not green, for keeping detailed journals--about 50 appear on stage, for brown or beige corduroy. A few of the movie scripts he has written are alluded to though he describes himself as a hack writer. If film writing has made him a rich man it does not appear so on stage. His wife we discover is dying of cancer though there is no appearance of illness onstage.

This is a play in which the action is inferred from the dialogue where the actors sit around sparring verbally with one another. The setting jumps from the present to the past and the future illustrating points made in discussion. Nothing takes place on stage and save for the putting off or on of a jacket or shawl there are no costume changes. Save for a few brief scenes in which the actors used facial expressions and hand gestures to react to one another the dramaturge was non-stop. If you were raised on Seinfeld and like David Mamet then this will be to your taste. It should be obvious it wasn’t too mine.

La Sylphide

La Sylphide is a ballet choreographed for the Danish Ballet by a 25-year-old who became legendary to music composed by a 20-year-old for whom this is the only music that has survived. A Danish version of a French Ballet set in Scotland complete with witches borrowed from Shakespeare’s Macbeth. A scaled-down Austin Symphony occupied the pit, only the tympani is afforded any breathing room; the bassoons with the French horns at their backs gained my immediate sympathy. No wonder they wear ear plugs. The million dollar sets and costumes borrowed from the Boston Ballet sparkled.

I was surprised to note that not a single principal dancer with the Austin Ballet comes from Austin, indeed there were only two from all of Texas. The part of the witch was played by the ballet’s associate director who hales from Alberta Canada, giving the boss a hard time must have created a bit of a laugh on stage. One assumes the ballet slippers used by the sylphs afford a modicum of support but the effect on stage was of the clacking of a small herd of elephants, competing loudly with the music. One wonders why all those woman were competing for the attentions of the balding lothario who played James.

Half a page of the program is devoted to acknowledging the medical staff who support the dancers. Austin audiences not noted it seems for punctuality the performance began 15 minutes late and the first half lasted barely half an hour. At intermission the patrons quickly departed their specially draped seats to run quaff their complimentary champagne. The things one must do to raise funds to support the arts.

La Sylphide is in the National Ballet of Canada’s repertoire so I know I’ve seen it as part of a larger program but can’t say as I remember it. Canadians it would seem get more pliés for their bucks. The educational material supplied on the ballet’s web site was quite informative as was the 45 minute Footlights program before the performance. Pity more people don’t show up early to see it.

Much was made during the talk of the pantomime used by this choreographer. Given the distance from the stage these motions were difficult to discern even with binoculars. What one could see from the back of the upper balcony one wonders. There were a lot of empty seats last night. An opening night performance the dancers were joined for their bows by the conductor and the artistic director who brought flowers for the two leading ladies. A ballet company led by a choreographer, one suspects the associate director’s position is far from honorary.

Sometimes I like to disturb fertilizer

As a sixth-generation German whose ancestors came to Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia in 1749 I am confused by all the foofaraw over La Langue Française in Québec.

If it has survived the Québécois for four hundred years is there an apprehension that it is in more trouble today than it has been lo these years? Does it need protection?

Why should it be protected? What is so all-fired important about preserving a bastardized form of French.

Is it really worth making people criminals because they put up what is deemed an improper sign? Has anybody actually fought that sign law all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada?

Got to love Windows OS

My laptop which uses Windows Vista is setup so that it is supposed to defer to user programs over background processes. Why then does Windows start a background process while I am using my computer that will serve to overload and lock up the system? Is there any background process so important that it should trump the user’s right to use his machine?

Should not Windows have a protocol that requires it to check to see if there are sufficient system resources and memory to start a background process. After all if starting it causes the computer to lock up the process will fail in any case.

Another Rant

A new supermarket near our house has an automatic water mister to keep the produce fresh.
When it goes on, you hear the sound of distant thunder and the smell of fresh rain.
When you approach the dairy case, you hear cows mooing and smell fresh mown hay.
When you near the egg case, you hear hens clucking and the air is filled with the pleasing aroma of bacon frying.
The snack department features the smell of fresh buttered popcorn.
I don't buy toilet paper there anymore.

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I just learned that the Lunenburg High School built in 1965, 20 miles from the home where I grew up was just demolished. I sang in the Kiwanis Music Festival there in my last year in high school during its first year in operation. Seems as an afterthought it was decided to check through the rubble for the time capsule that was placed in the cornerstone when the place was built. The high school kids are now bused 14 miles to another high school.

Time Capsule

The Lunenburg Academy built in 1894 is protected by its historic status but that historic status also guarantees it can’t be used for its original purpose as fire escapes and other safety features now standard in such buildings would violate its heritage designation.

Why bother to send a text message if the reader has to open a web page to finish it. Some of these ‘messages’ involve only half a dozen more words once one follows the link. If you can’t put the entire message in the E-mail why bother.

Speaking of text messages several Toronto Transit Commission Drivers have been fired for texting while driving. And in the news today comes word that a driver in Montreal was clocked doing 240 Km/Hr or 150 mph for those in America.

Snowbird's Lament

 

Outside my window the staff at Romeos Italian Restaurant are having a snowball fight on the outdoor patio. In the median on Barton Springs lies the light pole taken out by a driver overnight. As the sun which has finally come out struggles to raise the temperature above freezing for the first time since early Tuesday morning I am thankful I have no need to travel further than the washroom and my birdfeeder.

 

All this began Tuesday when we experienced an overnight low of 42 and an afternoon high of 27. By Wednesday morning it had dropped to 17 with gusting winds making it feel even colder and yes that’s Fahrenheit degrees. Strange to relate that Monday afternoon I sat outside and read in the sun. That intense cold prompted Texas Hydro to mandate rolling blackouts. At 6:05 my coffeemaker that had been programmed to start at 6 stopped working and from then until noon we had the benefit of modern civilization in our section of town for only brief 10 minutes periods each hour making a mockery of the radio announcements of 15 minute outages in some areas.

 

Outside the campground’s water tap is frozen as are some of the lines inside my RV. I can only hope that when things thaw out after the temperature tops 60 on Saturday that there is no permanent damage. Unfortunately we have one more night of intense cold to endure before things warm up. It is strange to look at North American Weather and realize there are sections of Alaska that have been warmer than Central Texas this week.

Ont. police issue 46K cellphone tickets

The Canadian Press

Ontario police have issued almost 46,000 tickets to drivers breaking the province's new cellphone ban. (CBC) Almost 46,000 tickets have been issued to drivers who have been caught breaking Ontario's cellphone ban.
Police started enforcing the ban a year ago on Feb. 1, 2010, but many drivers don't seem to be getting the message.
They say that adds up to more than 100 tickets a day to motorists who are using hand-held devices while driving.
The statistics come just a few days after three bus drivers in Toronto were accused of texting while driving passengers on their routes.
The drivers were caught on camera by passengers last week steering with cellphones in hand.
Under the law, Ontario drivers are forbidden from talking, texting, dialing or emailing using hand-held phones or entertainment devices — such as iPods — while driving.
It's also illegal to view display screens unrelated to driving, such as laptop computers or DVD players.