Ailantha - Blog

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QUIT BLAMING BIDEN!

Can someone please explain to me why it's Joe Biden's fault that his voting rights bill failed when it was not him but every Repubican in the Senate, marching in lockstep behind Mitch McConnell,

...and two Democrats who voted it down? (That is to say, who voted to not even let it come to a vote?)
Why aren't the all Senate Republicans along with Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema

...being blamed? They're the ones who garroted the bill, not Biden.
Why isn't the death of that bill the fault of those who killed it? Why is the fault of the man who fought for its life?
Which begs another question: Why are the majority of the members of the United States Senate against a law guaranteeing voting rights? This revelation should not make any American feel good, especially since in the past year over 250 laws have been proposed by Republican lawmakers in 43 states to supress the vote.
And why is it also Joe Biden who's being blamed for the failure of his Build Back Better bill to combat climate change and invest in social programs when, again, those who had the power to make the bill succeed - not Biden, no President has the power to pass his own bills - caused it to fail by their own choice? Again, every Republican in the Senate, along with Democratic Senator Joe Manchin,

...voted against Build Back Better.
Every oped writer in the country came up with a reason why this state of affairs is Biden's fault: He didn't show strong enough leadership, he didn't force 100% party loyalty, he didn't whip up enough public support, he should have accommodated the moderates, he should have blown off the progressives, he should have conjured up something to somehow get the Republicans on board.
But what difference would any of those strategies have made when there was no way in heaven or hell that a single Republican Senator was going to buck Mitch McConnell and vote for Build Back Better even if Joe Biden had climbed a mountain and come back down with the bill written on two stone tablets in the Lord's hand?
And with the Senate split 50 Democrats to 50 obstructionist Republicans it takes only one Democrat to bring any Presidential agenda crashing down. In the end it's the make-up of the Senate, two hostile groups of equal number pitted against each other's agendas - rather than working together on an agenda for the welfare of the country - that is to blame.
In fact I suppose one could even say that it's actually the American voters who are responsible for the downfall of what would have been Biden's two transformative pieces of legislation: After all, Americans voted Biden into the Presidency but then voted in a Senate that was bound to make any legislative success for him a long-shot uphill battle.
And yet here's the irony: All the political prognositcators are predicting that, because of voters' disappointment in Biden's lack of legislative successes, in the upcoming midterm Congressional election voters will elect more Republicans and fewer Democrats, guaranteeing that Biden will never pass another piece of legislation for the rest of his term. Go figure.
And here's another irony: Biden has in fact racked up a number of considerable ccomplishments to the benefit of our country during his first year:
- The withdrawl of our troops from Afghanistan from a war in which they'd been mired for over 20 years and the evacuation of 124.000 people
- A 1 trillion dollar bipartisan infrastructure and jobs bill
- A 1.9 trillion dollar COVID-19 relief plan
- A plentiful supply of COVID-19 vaccines for all Americans
- An extension of free school lunches during the COVID pandemic
- The distribution of free COVID tests and N95 masks
But because of the pieces of legislation he couldn't get past the Republican Senate and because of the continued spread in this country of a virus that's likewise spreading in every other country on the planet, the American public is being led by the political cognocenti to believe that Biden, who actually accomplished much in his first year, is failing and that his chances of a successful presidency and re-election grow dimmer by the day.
As for me, I'm not buying that. I may stand alone, but I still support Biden.

And I say that Biden has done a good job in his first year, and I don't care if I'm the only one in the metaverse who sees it.

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Future Shock

1/19/2022

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FUTURE SHOCK

Last Saturday I was in the Columbus airport, which, by the way, seems to have gotten a clue and ditched its old "One of Us" motto,

...which - thank goodness - no longer hangs from the rafters eliciting snickers from old movie buffs such as myself who got the reference (see post from 4/30/2018 https://www.ailantha.com/blog/one-of-us-one-of-us).

I'm not sure if the airport actually has a new motto, but the new banners at least don't make any inadvertent allusions to bizarre old horror flicks.

Anyway, last Saturday I was sitting at the gate waiting for a flight to Los Angeles when over the PA system came one of those public service announcements we've all gotten used to hearing since the onset two years ago of the COVID-19 pandemic. The voice on the PA reminded us about the Federal requirement of wearing a protective face mask while in the airport and on board aircraft and exhorted us to practice social distancing in public and to keep our hands clean and sanitized. The announcement ended by enjoinning us to all do our part to fight the virus.
After the words rallying us to fight the virus I looked around me,

...and was hit with the strange, surreal mental impression that overtakes me every now and then in which I'm in a science fiction movie about a future in which the planet has been hit by a virulent, hyper-contageous virus that has caused a world-wide pandemic.

The virus is airborne and can attack the lungs with a vengeance. It can rob people of their sense of taste and smell. It can affect brain function.
Then the discovery is made that the virus can also infect without causing any symptoms, which allows it to spread insidiously and exponentially.
Hospitals round the world are at their breaking point. There aren't enough beds for sick patients or medical staff to care for them. Intensive care units are crowded with people on ventilators.

Exhausted, burned-out doctors and nurses are getting sick and dying from the virus. Many of them are quitting their jobs. People are dying because medical care has to be rationed.
People have gotten into the practice of distancing from each other. Countries beseiged by the virus go in and out of lockdowns in which citizens are permitted to leave their homes only to buy necessities or for emergencies. There are supply shortages and bare shelves in the supermarkets.

Human interactions and the conducting of daily business are carried on more frequently on a computer screen. There are virtual corporate meetings, virtual doctor's visits, virtual family gatherings.

Children revert back and forth between going to school and learning what they can from home as the virus retreats then surges.
Masks become the norm and are required in most public places. Life takes on a new, cautious, fearful kind of normal under the pandemic.
But then one year into the pandemic potent vaccines against the virus become available to the public. It is believed that the world may be seeing the beginning of the end of the pandemic.
However there arises a movement of people known as anti-vaxxers who are opposed to the vaccines for political or religious reasons, or who harbor a mistrust of the science.

A subset of the anti-vaxxers are the anti-maskers, who refuse to wear masks in public as they see the mask mandate as an affront to their personal freedom.

And so the virus spreads among the unvaccinated and it mutates in their bodies into new, even more powerfully contagious variants. Eventually new mutations develop the ability to break through the protection of the vaccines and even the vaccinated must fear becoming infected by the unvaccinated. Society takes sides: vaxxed vs. unvaxxed; masked vs. unmasked.
The third year into the pandemic some scientists believe that the virus may never be wiped out and that humans must accustom themselves to living – and dying – with it. Infection and death rates continue to soar.
But through the darkest days there are other scientists working against the virus’s deadly clock to find a cure.
Such is the movie in my mind about a future ruled by a terrible, seemingly indomitable virus fortified by human ignorance and folly. Until I snap back moments later and realize that the movie is no movie but actual reality and the future is not the future but the present.
And as I sat in the airport last week I wondered, what if three years ago I could have looked into a crystal ball and seen into the future what I see around me now?

How shocked would I have been?

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Will Americans Still Have The Right To Vote? Will We Still Have Fair Elections? Will We Still Have A Democracy?

1/13/2022

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Books By Patti Liszkay
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"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
Available on Amazon.

WILL AMERICANS STILL HAVE THE RIGHT TO VOTE? WILL WE STILL HAVE FAIR ELECTIONS? WILL WE STILL HAVE A DEMOCRACY?

Dear Cyberarchivist of the future who, while sifting through ancient internet postings from bygone centuries in search of history, has come across this blog chronicling events and observations of typical day-to-day life in the first quarter of the 21st Century AD:
On this day, January 13, 2022, I live a country currently consisting of the union of fifty states known as the United States of America, generally referred to as the United States or the U.S. or the U.S.A.

We are the strongest, wealthiest country on the planet and for most of the past two centuries - for our country was established in its present constitution only a little over two centuries ago - we have been seen by the rest of the world as a bastion of democracy. We have been admired and looked up to as a model and inspiration for other countries in our freedoms and our rights of self-determination through our fair elections of leaders and officials chosen by the people and for the people.
But the United States of America is now at an inflection point. Over the years our Supreme Court, from resting on complacency and having become more politicized, has disempowered our country's voting rights law, known as the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This fact is barely on the radar of most of the population.
In 2016 Americans, as our citizens are known, elected to the Presidency an enormously rich and charismatic man of a tyrannical nature named Donald Trump who believed that the United States was him, that what benefited him benefited the nation, and that therefore he was above the law.

Donald Trump demanded from his appointees and the members of his political party unquestioning flattery and praise, and painted anyone who opposed him in the least matter as the enemy of himself and the nation.
Though self-serving and largely inept as a leader, he was loved and adulated with religious fervor by his supporters among the citizenry.

And though Donald Trump was defeated by many millions of votes in the next election four years later, so powerful was this man's cult of personality that he succeeded in pushing the lie that the Presidency was stolen from him in a rigged election. He attempted to have the election results in some states overturned, calling state officials in his political party and asking them to change the official vote count. He attempted to coerce members of our nation's highest elected legislative body to refuse to certify the newly-elected President, Joe Biden.

Most of the members of his political party did his bidding. Those who acknowledged Biden's Presidency were punished with Donald Trump's wrath and shunned by the rest of his political party.
It was only by a near miss that no state election results were overturned.
However on January 6, 2021, two weeks before Donald Trump's successor was to take office, thousands of his followers, at his instigation, attacked the United States Capitol building, the seat of our government, with the idea of overthrowing the government and re-installing Donald Trump as President.

The insurrection was put down on that same day, but since that day Donald Trump's hold on our country's elected officials who are members of his political party has grown stronger and the lawmakers in one-third of our states have passed laws to suppress voting rights.
On this day President of the United States Joe Biden is urging our country's lawmaking bodies to immediately pass new laws to end voter suppression and to ensure voting rights for all American citizens. Not one lawmaker of Donald Trump's party will vote for the voting rights laws. Even some members of the President Biden's own party are refusing their support.

And so on this day, January 13, 2022, it does not augur well for voting rights protected by law in the United States of America. And even if the right to vote does once more become law, there are at this time no legal guarantees that in the future those in power could not subvert elections and/or overturn fair election results, as Donald Trump and his allies attempted and came too close to doing after the Presidential election of 2020.
In fact, there is no guarantee that we Americans, in who we chose as our elected leaders, will not vote our democracy into a dictatorship.
And so here is my question for you, Cyberarchivist of the future: Did we?

Reference:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/12/us/politics/biden-voting-rights-speech-election-subversion.html

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Why I Made Pizza The Other Night

1/11/2022

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WHY I MADE PIZZA THE OTHER NIGHT

This past Sunday evening Tom and I went out for pizza.
We'd decided to venture across town to the upscale-ish Columbus suburb of Worthington to check out an upscale-ish pizzeria called Dewey's with the idea of possibly planning an outdoor family get-together there over the summer.

According to the Dewey's website the place opened at 4pm. Hoping to avoid being in a crowded space, we arrived there a little before 4:30 and were happy to find only one other car in the parking lot.
That is, we were happy until we realized that the parking lot was empty because Dewey's dining room was closed. On the door was taped a sheet of paper saying that Dewey's would be opened only for carry-out on that day, Sunday, January 9, and the following day, Monday, January 10. Too bad, we said. Unexpected COVID-induced staff-shortages, we guessed.
We headed back to our side of town, both of us now nursing a craving for pizza. While we were driving I called our neighborhood Donatos with the idea of ordering a pizza to pick up. The recording advised me (in so many words) that due to staff shortages the wait to place a phone order was approximately until Kingdom Come and that I should place my order onine.
I looked at the online menu which warned that due to pandemic shortages certain pizza ingredients might not be available. Exactly what that statement portended I was not altogether sure, but my Spidey sense picked up that if we wanted to eat any time soon, ordering a pizza on a Sunday night in the midst of this epdemic might not be the way to go.
"Why don't we forget about pizza," said Tom, "and just go to Noodles & Company?"
Noodles & Company, a fast-food pasta place, is our go-to restaurant these days. Most of the orders are for carry-out, and on the nights we go there for dinner there's generally no one else eating in the dining room besides ourselves. We like the food at Noodles & Company, we like having the dining room to ourselves, and we also like the reusable, supersonic, microwaveable, dishwasher-safe containers that the food is served in.

I agreed that Noodles & Company sounded like a good, safe option. Plus I could use a couple more food containers.
We were likewise happy to see the Noodles & Company parking lot empty. Until we saw this sign on the door:

"Son of a beach vacation!" said I. "What about our go-to place? What about the food containers?"
"What about dinner tonight?" said Tom.
"Let's go home," I sighed.
So we did. I then rummaged through the household provisions and came up with ingredients sufficient to rustle together a pizza of sorts.

I rolled out the focaccia dough,

...then topped it with pizza sauce, mozzarella, tomatoes, Parmesan, and snips of basil.

Fifteen minutes later, at long last pizza!

Was it as good as Dewey's? I cannot say.
But it was good.

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It Finished With A Fizzle, But It's Fine

1/9/2022

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IT FINISHED WITH A FIZZLE, BUT IT'S FINE

My kitchen remodel, slated to be a month-long project completed by JSB Home Solutions on October 12, 2021, was finally finished the day before yesterday, January 7, 2022, when a couple of memebers of the caulking team arrived to press the final line of sealant between the backsplash and the countertops.

I suppose this should have been a moment of at least some excitement, some fizz, a Brand New Kitchen Moment. But nah. The kitchen wasn't new anymore, it had arrived in too many bits and pieces and over too dragged-out and exasperating a length of time for there to be any fizz left at the finish line. But in truth, at this point I was beyond needing any fizz. I was happy for the finale to come off with a fizzle.
The caulkers showed up at my door early this past Friday morning without specific advance notice. They said they figured they'd just swing by and get this job finished up. I hadn't yet had breakfast, but it was fine. Workers have been dropping in and out of my kitchen at all hours for so long that I've gotten used to co-existing around them.
However, I expect I should fill in the blanks between the point in this saga where I last left off and this, the end point.
So, then, as recounted in my December 7, 2021 post:
One of the countertop pieces installed back in October by Lang Stone, JSB's countertop subcontracting company, had turned out to be defective along the seam.

After numerous unsuccessful attempts by the Lang Stone folks to remedy whatever it was that was ailing the seam, it was decided that this whole section of countertop would have to be pulled out and replaced.
However on the day before (Or mayhaps even the morning of) its scheduled installation in my kitchen, the replacement piece of countertop was somehow accidentally destroyed in the Lang Stone warehouse. (see www.ailantha.com/blog/it-gets-worse).
As there was not another slab of stone to be had anywhere in Ohio (or perhaps the world) from which to cut a piece of countertop that would match the rest of the kitchen countertops, which were perfectly fine,

...I was obligated to return to the stone supply warehouse to choose a new slab from which a whole new set of countertops would have to be cut. I chose this stone, called Calacatta Brazil quartzite (see post from 12/9/2021, https://www.ailantha.com/blog/oh-calacatta),

...from which the new countertops were fabricated by Lang Stone.
The tearing out of the old new countertops and the installation of the new new countertops happened on December 15, during which time my sister Romaine was visiting me from Oregon.
Having my kitchen torn apart again, this time while my sister was here,

...was just a weence annoying.

However my sister and I hopped to it and made cinnamon rolls from our mom's recipe on December 14, the day before the tear-apart.

In truth, for all my fretting over having to relinquish my old new countertops, I had to admit that these new new countertops did turn out to be prettier than I'd envisioned.

Five days before Christmas the tile guys arrived and spent the day putting up the backsplash, which also turned out very nicely.

The JSB contractor then informed me that the caulkers and wood trimmers would arrive to finish up the kitchen on December 23. I told him that day wouldn't work because it was two days before Christmas and my grand children were coming and I needed access to my kitchen. The contractor advised me that if the caulkers and trimmers say they can come two days before Christmas, you grab them two days before Christmas.
So I did.
However, as it turned out, on the morning of December 23 the caulkers and trimmers changed their mind, or took pity on me, or something, and agreed to put the job off until after the holidays. And so I was able to rustle together at least a few Christmas cookies before my grand children arrived.

So it was fine.
On Monday, January 4, the caulkers and wood trimmers returned to finish the job. They trimmed and caulked then were on their way, I thought for the last time. However a few hours later, after the caulking around the sink had purportedly dried sufficiently to withstand contact with water, I washed dishes then wiped down the area around the sink to include the caullking only to have the melted caulking wipe off.
It turned out that one of the caulkers had grabbed the wrong can of caulk for the job, a caulk meant for wood rather than a sealant meant for a sink area. However they returned the day before yesterday with the correct caulk and put the final finishing touch on my kitchen remodel.
My kitchen on Sunday, September 12, 2021

...and on Friday, January 7, 2022.

(If anyone is interested in going back and re-reading my kitchen remodel saga from the beginning, the first chapter was posted on 9/19/2: https://www.ailantha.com/blog/good-bye-old-kitchen).
Do I like my new - that is to say my not-really-new-anymore - kitchen?
Yes, I do. I very much like my remodeled kitchen, I'm glad it's finished, and I don't even mind that the finale was a fizzle. Fizzle is fine.
Now all I have to do is have the kitchen flooring re-done.

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Wishing The Holidays Were Somehow Here Again

1/3/2022

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Available on Amazon.

WISHING THE HOLIDAYS WERE SOMEHOW HERE AGAIN

Today is January 3. the holidays are officially over and it's time to start at least thinking about taking down the decorations,

...which are always so much more fun to put up than to take down.
And yet somehow, this year it seems like the decorations weren't up long enough. In fact, this year the whole Christmas season wasn't long enough. It whisked in too fast, before I was ready for it to arrive, then went by in a whirl, and now today it's all over, and I'm no more ready for it to be over than I was for it to begin.
Of course, time moves no faster or slower from one year to the next and it neither contracts nor expands. But I think this year the holidays seemed so contracted in part because of the drawn-out remodeling of my kitchen, which was supposed to be done in mid-October but expanded out into November, through Thanksgiving into December, right up until the week before Christmas, and today as I write this the caulkers and wood-workers are back in my kitchen putting on what will hopefully be the finishing touches.
With the frequent presence of workers in the house and my kitchen often in disarray or out of commission, I think the holidays - or at least my holiday spirit - got lost for too long in the shuffle going on in my kitchen and my brain.
Until suddenly Christmastime - and my Christmas spirit - was here, arriving with a week-long visit from my sister Romaine (see www.ailantha.com/blog/seeing-the-columbus-sights-and-lights),

...and again in the wee hours of Christmas Eve when my daughter, son-in-law, and grand daughters arrived in Columbus shortly after midnight from Los Angeles.

The next day - which was actually the same day, December 24, but divided by half a night and half a morning of sleep - was a busy one. We gave the girls the job of decorating the tree, which I'd bought the day before on Christmas Tree clearance from Oakland Nursery, $29.99 reduced from $69.99.
The job required numerous rest breaks.

Next the girls built gingerbread houses.

Then there were Christmas presents to wrap,

...after which the girls decided to make some rubberband jewelry and key chains,

...and open a shop in the kitchen in case anyone needed to pick up a last-minute Christmas gift.

Meanwhwhile Tom and Justin prepared the candles for the luminaries which we set up along our block every Christmas Eve,

...while I worked on a ham-and-cheese stromboli for dinner.

Just before sun down we set up the luminaries.

On Christmas Eves before the COVID epidemic we used to host a carol singing and invite friends over for feasting,

...and singing.

But on this Christmas Eve we feasted with each other,

...and afterwards I played and we sang the Channukah and Christmas songs just as we've always loved to do on Christmas Eve,

...while outside our luminaries lit up the street.

On Christmas morning we whipped up our tradtional holiday brunch,

...aka The Big Breakfast.

As our daughter Claire was working Christmas Day in the COVID ICU of her hospital, we Facetimed her and she joined us briefly,

...and showed us some of the treats the nuses had brought in to share for a little holiday party.

After brunch we opened presents.

...and the rest of the day was spent playing games,

...doing a puzzle,

...and otherwise amusing and busying ourselves,

...until it was time for Christmas dinner, which was mostly left-overs from Christmas Eve dinner and the Big Breakfast.

After dinner we went to Creekside in downtown Gahanna to see the lights.

Because of the recent surge of the COVID Omnicron variant we spent most of the rest of the holiday hanging around the house. On Christmas Day we called my sister Romaine, who told us that she, too, would spend most of the rest of the holidays hanging around her house. I believe it was my daughter who came up with the idea that since we were hanging around here in Columbus. Ohio, and Romaine was hanging around there in Portland, Oregon, that she should fly back out here to Columbus so we could at least all hang around the house together.
And so she did, and we all hung around the house together for most of the rest of the holidays,

...with a few exceptions.
Back in November, when the COVID numbers were still holding steady and the hyper-contageous Omicron variant hadn't yet burst onto the scene, I had ordered tickets to the Van Gogh Immersive Light Exhibit for my grand daughters, their parents and myself for December 29.
As it turned out, my son-in-law needed to return to Los Angeles for work and so Romaine used his ticket and we all went to see Van Gogh,

...my third time,

...and Romaine's second, as we went togeter last time she was in Columbus.

Another day walked to Kroger's and back, three miles round trip.

But mostly we stayed around the house, playing games,

....or sometimes playing with the nativity scene,

...doing arts and crafts,

...baking,

... making pies with people's names on them,

...pitching in with chores,

...eating,

...and doing other things.

I can't say why the days flew by as quickly as they did, but then suddenly it was New Year's Day and everyone was leaving.

...and then the holidays were over.
And now I find myself wishing they were starting over again and that this time the time would go by a little slower.

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Abide in "Please," "Thank You," And "I'm Sorry;" But The Greatest Of These Is...

12/28/2021

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The day before yesterday Pope Francis gave what he called a "Christmas present to married couples" in a letter he released,

...filled with advice for getting along during these times of concentrated togetherness that the COVID pandemic has forced on people living under the same roof.
Among the words of counsel he offered for couples working to keep love and tranquility in their relationship was this piece of advice: The most important words in a marriage are "please," "thanks," and "sorry."
As someone who's been married for going on forty-five years, I agree in general with Pope Francis's guidance. But speaking from personal experience, I would offer that the form in which he gave it might be just a weence simplistic and calls for some expanded explanation and clarification.
I agree that prefixing or suffixing any request made to one's partner with "Please" is an excellent practice. It's a common courtesy that polite people use in public. And being at least as polite to one's beloved as one is to everyone else in the world is a good basis for a good marriage or relationship.
"Sorry," though, I think, can be a little trickier. Of course, apologizing to one's partner is important when one has hurt or somehow wronged, imposed upon, or aggrieved their partner, either accidentally or on purpose. Saying “I’m sorry” is absolutely necessary from time to time in a loving - or, for that matter, any kind of - relationship. But there must be more to an apology than just the words that are spoken. The words must be an expression of feeling.
For example, I once knew a priest who taught at my college and, like most priests, was from time to time called upon to give marriage counseling. One time I heard him advising someone that if a person's spouse is angry at them over something they've done all the person has to do is say, "I'm sorry" and that'll be the end of it because once they've apologized their spouse won't be able to say anything else about it. What this priest meant was that "I'm sorry" is a handy tool for shutting up or shutting down someone you've offended. Which is fine, I suppose, if shutting another person up or down is your aim. But this sort of play is toxic to a marriage, or, for that matter, to any kind of interpersonal relationship.
As a healing balm for any offense, from the smallest, most harmless, to the greatest, most hurtful, "I'm sorry" must always come from the heart. Apologize to your beloved as often as necessary. However be likewise careful not to fall into the habit of over-apologizing, as this behavior is not beneficial to a relationship, for not the least reason that it's downright annoying.
Ah, but the same can not be said of the habit of saying "thank you" to each other. Couples can never thank each other too much. They can thank each other all day long without worry of over-doing it. Quite the contrary: couples should thank each other all day long: "Thank you for remembering to fill up the car;" "Thank you for taking out the trash;" "Thank you for chopping the carrots;" "Thank you for making dinner;" "Thank you for washing the dishes;" "Thank you for walking the dog;" "Thank you for tipping the server so generously;" "Thank you for being a good husband/wife/partner/ father/mother ;" "Thank you for marrying/living with/loving me." For two people sharing a household the daily opportunities to thank each other are endless. Couples should thank each other for the big things and the small things, for the everyday, mundane little nothing things without worry that either of them will ever tire of being thanked. Because saying "thank you" is another way of saying "I appreciate you;" "I notice you;" "I love you."
And who ever tires of hearing that?
And so, expanding upon the wisdom of Pope Francis, I'll say to couples, "Abide in 'Please,' 'Thank you,' and 'I'm sorry.' But the greatest of these is...'Thank you.'"
Oh, and "How you doing?" is nice, too.

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My Christmas Arch Becomes A Kissing Arch

12/22/2021

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MY CHRISTMAS BECOMES A KISSING ARCH

The idea of turning my Christmas Arch into a kissing arch came from Jan Alexander, my old college chum (me top row, Jan bottom row),

...fellow writer,

...and Facebook friend.
In fact, it was in a comment left on my Facebook page by Jan after reading my post about building a Christmas arch on the sidewalk in front of my house (https://www.ailantha.com/blog/my-christmas-arch),

...that Jan suggested that I tie up some mistletoe in the middle of the arch. She may have been jesting - another friend suggested I leave the arch up all year 'round and plant morning glories and pole beans in the summer - but I frankly loved the kissing arch idea.
I looked on Amazon and found a large, light-up ball of plastic mistletoe which looked to be the very ticket.

However, I should have considered the fine print more carefully, for when my mistletoe ball arrived I saw that it was battery-operated rather than plug-in, which meant that if I wanted light-up mistletoe hanging from my arch I would have to either have to leave the mistletoe lights turned on all the time or cliimb up to the top of the arch twice a night, once to turn them on and again to turn them off.
I decided to return the mistletoe ball and ditch the idea of a kissing arch until it hit me: I could simply wrap a strand of Christmas lights around the ball and plug the strand into the arch lights, in which case the mistletoe ball would light up with the rest of the arch lights.
And this is precisely what I did.

So now, thanks to the suggestion of my friend, my Christmas arch is a kissing arch as well. Stroll on by with a friend and have a smooch, why doncha?

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The Best West Side Story...And The Worst

12/21/2021

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THE BEST WEST SIDE STORY...AND THE WORST

I wasn't intending to see Steven Spielberg's updated remake of "West Side Story." The reviews I'd read touted this new version of the 1961 movie musical as having an expanded storyline and some changes that set the love story between Tony and Maria as secondary to the relevant social issues that the film expounds upon.
Now, I'm all about relevant social issues. But I'm not about messing with "West Side Story," which, if you ask me, is hard enough to get right even when a production sticks to the original script.
Prior to the release of the 2021 movie, I'd seen five different iterations of "West Side Story": The sublime movie with Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer, one of my favorite of favorite movies;

...three high school productions; and a 1976 Broadway tour shown at the Schubert Theater in Philadelphia starring Leslie Uggams as Maria.

I - along with the rest of the world - loved the movie. None of the "West Side Story" stage performances I subsequently saw were all that good. The problem with most of the stage productions was the character of Maria, an elusively difficult character to portray. None of the stage Marias I saw succeeded in capturing the mix of innocence, sweetness and strength that Natalie Wood gave the character in the movie. All the other Marias in the productions I saw somehow missed the mark and came across as kind of bratty and annoying. But again, Maria is a hard character to get right.
Still, all the high school "West Side Story" productions I saw were a sight better than that one Broadway production, which was by far the worst of the batch, mainly because Leslie Uggams was by far the worst Maria of the batch.

Part of the problem, I think, was that Leslie Uggams was in her mid-thirties at the time and looked every day of her age. She seemed more like Tony's mom. But the main problem for me was that she never got into the character of Maria - she was Leslie Uggams in concert. She never moved around much on the stage, even while singing "I feel pretty." The first time Leslie Uggams appeared on stage the audience applauded. When she sang the spotlight was on her, and the audience applauded afterwards. They - unlike me - were obviously there to see Leslie Uggams, not "West Side Story." As for the Sharks and the Jets, the director's idea must have been to have them show toughness and hostility by peppering their dialogue with "F... You," "Bulls...," and all the other standard obscenities to include flipping each other the finger on a regular basis. That concept was pretty ineffective and the whole production was kind of excruciating to sit through.
Hence I had no desire to sit through another excruciating "West Side Story," as I feared the Spielberg movie might be.
However I figured there was no harm in listening to the soundtrack. So I pulled up the "West Side Story" 2021 soundtrack on Youtube.

The soundtrack took me by surprise. It was beautiful. That is to say, even more beautiful than the original Broadway or movie musical soundtracks. There was something about the orchestration: Basically the same, but different, a few changes here and there, some variations of tempo and instrumentation. And the singers had the most wonderful voices. And there was a new song sung in Spanish. I was captivated by the music and the singing.
And so. because I loved the soundtrack, I decided to check out the movie. I went last Friday to an 11:25 am matinee with my sister Romaine. (We went at this early time in hopes of avoiding a COVID crowd. In fact there were only three other people in the theater besides us).
What did I think of this movie version of "West Side Story?" I loved it. that is to say, I love, love, LOVED it! It grabbed me from the opening scene of a slum neighborhood in the process of being demolished and held me, captivated me, transported me and gripped my heart for the next fleeting two-and-a-half hours.

Rachel Zegler was the perfect Maria,

...and the chemistry between her Maria and Ansel Elgort's Tony sparkled.

As for the expanded background and back stories added to this movie by screenwriter Tony Kushner, it felt like this was all the better to tell more explicitly what creators Jerome Robbins, Stephen Sondheim, Arthur Laurent and Leonard Bernstein knew and meant when they created the original "West Side Story" over sixty-five years ago. For example, in Spielberg's film it's obvious that the character of Anybody's is a transgender boy,

...something that most audience members wouldn't have understood (though some surely would have understood in secret) in 1957 when the musical first came to the stage, or in 1961 when it came to the movie screen,

...but that the original crafters of "West Side Story" obviously did.
So, I'm making the bold declaration: The new Steven Spielberg "West Side Story" is the best "West Side Story" of them all and, all due respect to Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, et al, this one is my new favorite. And I'll definitely be catching another matinee.

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Seeing The Columbus Sights And Lights

12/18/2021

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SEEING THE COLUMBUS SIGHTS AND LIGHTS

Last Sunday, December 12, my sister Romaine flew into Columbus from Oregon for a six-day visit.

Tommy and Emily came over Sunday night to help us welcome her with a celebration dinner,

...of rice and vegetable casserole, Parmesan baked squash, green beans almondine and hot rolls.

Romaine and I spent the next five days taking in some of the local sights and holiday lights.
On Monday we visited the Franklin Park Conservatory,

...a vast greenhouse,

...where botanical environments from around the planet share space with special exhibits and the glass sculptures of artist Dale Chihuly.

Among the holiday exhibits were a pointsettia display,

...a gingerbead house contest,

...and an outdoor display which is reputed to be quite beautiful at night when all the lights are lit,

...and where the idea of a Christmas arch just might have originated.

The following day Romaine, my daughter Theresa and I went to the Columbus Immersive Van Gogh exhibit, my second time around (See post from 11/22/2021, https://www.ailantha.com/blog/immersed-in-van-gogh).

Romaine and Theresa were charmed and enchanted by the show, as was I, as much this time as my first time.

And, like the first time I saw this Van Gogh exhibit, it struck me once again that there is more than enough material in the ordinary things and people to inspire any artist,