June 2023 - Page 4 of 6 - Ramblin' with Roger

22 gallons, and bad air

SCOTUS surprises

blood Here’s a day in the life, in this case, Wednesday, June 7, 2023. Among other things, it was the second day of bad air.

My computer has been wonky. I would click on Google Chrome. Then, unexpectedly, it would shut down. I used Microsoft Bing; the same thing. My computer’s too full. I have no photos or music. I don’t know what to change, except I could offload some downloads. So I did, a tedious process that I attacked throughout the day.

I had signed up to donate blood at Albany High School. According to the American Red Cross, this would be my 176th donation, making it 22 gallons.

I walked to the school. Donations are now collected in the new library, which is much better than getting lost leaving the gymnasium. Something I don’t think I admitted to in this blog: I’m a competitive donor.

When it took me 14 minutes to donate the time before last, I was unsurprised because I had a relatively novice phlebotomist who likely hit the scar tissue. The last time, it was about seven minutes. This time, five minutes and thirteen seconds, which was in my usual range, was a sign of a quality technician. I beat a teacher and a high school student who started before I did.

The opposite of buenos aires

While the 1.2 km walk to the school was fine, the return trip was arduous. I heard the air quality would be better than the previous day; not so. It was bad enough for the New York Yankees to postpone a game, some Broadway shows to be affected, and Governor Hochul recommended school children avoid outdoor activities. Orange skies at noon, indeed.

The air quality index in much of the Northeast surpassed official “hazardous” levels on that date; New York City’s reached 413, the highest in the world. This is nasty stuff for the human body.

If it’s this bad now, what will it be like after we breach 1.5°C?

We received a lovely thank-you note from newlyweds Deborah and Cyrille, not an email but an interactive message on their magical website.

That night on the news, NBC was plugging their coverage of the 2024 Olympics in Paris. Later, on a Law and Order: SVU rerun, which my daughter was watching, the villain escapes to Paris. We’ve been there!

Some links

Supreme Court unexpectedly upheld the provision prohibiting racial gerrymandering and voted not to make federal Medicaid law virtually unenforceable. Miraculous.

2022 edition of The Year in Hate and Extremism

Neglected political issues: Life expectancy

If the Police Can Decide Who Qualifies as a Journalist, There Is No Free Press

The sportswashing of professional golf

Construction of US manufacturing plants is undergoing an immense boom

djt Has Been Indicted Again

Nearly a Third Reporting Two or More Races Were Under 18 in 2020

State-to-State Migration Flows

‘Burn It Down’ Explores SNL and Its “Culture of Impunity”

Tony Awards: A Victory for Theater in America; Winners

TV Ratings 2022-23: Final Seven-Day Averages for Every Network Series

Amid Writers Strike, Hollywood’s Next Big Question May Be: Is SAG-AFTRA Next?

Treat Williams, Star of ‘Everwood’ and ‘Prince of the City,’ Dies in Motorcycle Accident in Southern Vermont at 71. He was airlifted to Albany Medical Center before passing away.

John Romita Sr., Legendary Marvel Artist, Dies at 93. He was the Marvel art director when I first started reading comics in 1972.

Pat Cooper, Stand-Up Comedian, Dies at 93

Barry Newman, Star of ‘Petrocelli,’ Dies at 92

The Artichoke Parm, the Most Mysterious Sandwich in Brooklyn

14-year-old got to animate a scene in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Now I Know: Why a Pair of British Officials Watched Paint Dry and Why Bermuda’s Roofs All Look The Same and Cookie Monster and The Hand with the Mind of Its Own

MUSIC

Hekla by Jón Leifs

Coverville 1445: Prince Cover Story VI

Capriccio Italien by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Better Together Song Around The World, featuring Jack Johnson, Paula Fuga, Lee Oskar

In The Steppes of Central Asia by Borodin

Loan Me A Dime – Boz Scaggs

Pique Dame by Franz Von Suppe.

The Angel City Choir medley of memorable TV theme songs

Better – Shannon Dooks

Paul McCartney says AI tools helped rescue John Lennon vocals for ‘last Beatles record’

Reclaiming the American flag

More personal context

I’m working on a project, and that project is me. I’m working on reclaiming the American flag.

It isn’t easy, though. My family, to my recollection, never hung the flag outside the house. And there was never one outside of my grandmother’s house either.

Though I don’t recall ever discussing it with my parents when I grew up, I got the clear message from my father that the overt signs of patriotism were not his thing. I’m convinced that it was a function of bigotry he experienced in the military in 1945 and 1946 and dealing with racism subsequently.

By the time I was in high school, there was an “America, love it or leave it” mentality, which I associated with literal flag waving.

The BCHS incident

When I was in eleventh grade, there was about a week when we didn’t have the Pledge of Allegiance over the loudspeaker. So one day, my homeroom teacher, Harvey, decided our class should do so. I refused to stand. That “liberty and justice for all” stuff, I felt, was a lie. The face of the homeroom teacher grew increasingly red as he repeated the request, and I remained seated.

During the first period, trigonometry, this burly adult sat a couple of seats behind me. I figured he was evaluating the newish math teacher. In fact, it was the new principal, Dr. K.

I met with him and my father, who he had called, either during lunch or after school. Dr. K asked if I were an adherent of the Jehovah’s Witnesses since the Supreme Court ruled in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette that “expelling a student who doesn’t recite the Pledge of Allegiance … violates the Constitution’s guarantee of freedom of speech and religion.” That ruling, coincidentally, was eighty years ago on this very date. (It reversed a SCOTUS ruling in Minersville School District v. Gobitis only three years earlier.)

No, I said. We worked out a compromise that I would stand for the Pledge but didn’t have to say it. Oddly, in twelfth grade, as president of the student, I recited it over the loudspeaker. By then, I had decided the words were aspirational rather than factual.

I like red, white, and blue.

I should be clear that I’ve always liked the actual flag. They were going to add a star and stripe for every state that joined the union. The fact that they pivoted back to thirteen stripes, I thought, was very clever.

I’ve been to Arlington National Cemetery and the military cemetery in North Carolina where my parents are buried, and I find the rows of flags quite moving.

SCOTUS has recognized flag burning as protected speech. While I agree with the concept philosophically, it bothers me when I see it, and I would not do so myself.

Indeed, I’m more aware of 4 U.S. Code § 8 – Respect for flag than most people who claim to revere it, for instance:

d) The flag should never be used as wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery. (i) The flag should never be used for advertising purposes in any manner whatsoever. I came across this pin of a flag with a cross on it; this Christo-Americanism I found highly unsettling.

And the literal embrace of the flag by djt I find utterly grotesque. (Does the fact that his birthday is June 14 somehow create a rationale in his mind?)

And yet

When the US was preparing to go to war in Iraq, and I actively opposed it in the six months before I began, the peaceniks were dubbed not “real” lovers of their country.

Still, if I Google “liberals reclaiming the flag” I find articles like this from USA Today (2018) and this from Politico (2020) and this from the New York Times (2022). I agree with most of the sentiments contained therein.

Maybe this would work for me. From NPR: “Many have chosen to fly the flag next to other symbols to give it more personal context. For some, that means raising the Stars and Stripes along with a ‘Make American Great Again’ banner. For others, the American flag is flying alongside a gay pride banner or Black Lives Matter sign.” OK, not the MAGA sign, but…

Morissette and the Temps

Otis Williams

In May 2023, my wife and I attended two musicals at Proctors Theatre in Schenectady. The first was Alanis Morisette’s Jagged Little Pill: the Musical, based on her 1995 album and more of her songs. The second was Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations.

The Morissette piece was interesting because it had a narrative not driven by the songs. Instead, Diablo Cody wrote the book and seemed to plug in the appropriate tune for that narrative arc.

The story revolves around a Connecticut woman named Mary Jane Healy. She’s writing the annual Christmas letter. She brags about her husband Steve’s work promotion and son Nick’s early admission to Harvard. And, oh yeah, her adopted daughter Frankie’s art. Things are not so perfect in suburbia, however.

The Hollywood Reporter wrote: “Electrifying, visceral and stunning. JAGGED LITTLE PILL takes a stand against complacency.”

The review headline in the Albany Times Union by Steve Barnes calls the show “pushy, overambitious, loud.” The last sentence and a half: “The show, in its own weird way, has the integrity of committed beliefs. Whether that’s your kind of theater is another matter.”

It is undoubtedly MY kind of theater, a narrative that hits on several hot-button topics, including prescription drug addiction and rape by a familiar. I accept “pushy” and even “loud.” But it was clear that the Thursday matinee audience, except for an older couple who walked out after the first song in the second act, You Oughta Know, was enthralled by the material and the actors performing it.

Jagged Little Pill played on Broadway from December 2019 to March 2020, then from October to December 2021. It’s been touring since August 31, 2022, and will be touring in Buffalo, Boston, KC, and elsewhere at least through September.

Motown

Ain’t Too Proud is a standard jukebox musical. It tells the story of Motown’s leading male singing group from the point of view of Otis Williams, the only remaining member from their heyday in the 1960s and 1970s.

Before the program began at our Saturday matinee, my wife asked if the group had stayed with its original members. Er, no. Indeed, the group’s evolution drove the narrative: Elbridge Bryant was replaced by David Ruffin, who was replaced by Dennis Edwards et al.

The music and the performances were top-notch. The TU’s Barnes calls it a “resplendent cavalcade of Temptations’ hits,” even as he questions the jukebox musical genre.

My issue was more prosaic. The show takes some liberties with the facts, probably to trim a full show. For instance, I would have concluded from Ain’t Too Proud that the Temptations reunion show took only a couple of years after Eddie Kendricks left the group in 1971.

Actually, it took place in 1982, and I attended it at the Colonie Colosseum in Albany County, NY. Glenn Leonard was one of the seven, not Damon Harris, who left the group in 1975.

I had to actively say to myself, “Self, these details don’t much matter to the audience.” And there were things the show got correct, such as Berry Gordy refusing to let the group release War as a single; it became a #1 hit for Edwin Starr.

Like JLP, Ain’t Too Proud’s run (Mar 21, 20190 -Jan 16, 2022) was interrupted by COVID. The show has been touring since December 2021. It’ll be touring the US Midwest, South, and Western Canada, among the locales, through February 2024.

Paris to Auray to Erdeven

Watson

May 17: After breakfast, we pack and taxi to the PARIS MONTPARNASSE station to take the 9:55 train from Paris to Auray in the country’s Brittany (western) section. We could have walked to the subway and then traveled that way, but my wife chose to spend the money on the easier path.

It was actually two different trains. From Paris to Rennes was lovely, with assigned seats on the TGV TRAIN, Internet connectivity, and room to store our items.

But we had just ten minutes to catch our connection to Auray on a different platform. The TER TRAIN was overly full, and while I had gotten on, my wife, ever polite, was waiting for someone to move in so she could get on board and was almost left behind.

We were standing with our luggage for a time before a couple of people let the old couple sit down. This was appreciated, but my seat was right across from the bathroom, which extended into the train car. So my 35-pound suitcase sat on my lap.

We arrive at the Auray train station at about 1 pm. Deborah met my wife, although they had spoken on Facebook. We meet Cyrille; he seems like a very nice guy.

Peugeot

We have a brief conversation about the rental car. I had written to Deborah the week before about the rental car she secured with my wife’s driver’s license and my credit card. She had briefly forgotten this detail since she’d done it around February 1. Then they had to meet other travelers.

We get something to eat at a local cafe and then go to the nearby Europcar place only a half block away. The car is a Peugeot; it has automatic transmission, but it takes my wife about ten minutes to suss out its operation.

Then we needed to figure out where our next hotel was. Initially, we can’t figure out the GPS and try a paper map. Ultimately, we get the GPS to work, though we don’t know how. The hotel is only a short distance away, but the GPS directs us to a path we can’t use because of road construction. The paper map then did the trick.

We relax and have dinner there.

May 18: My wife drove the 20 minutes/16 km to Erdeven. We were there to participate in the rehearsal for Deborah and Cyrille’s wedding. On April 25, she asked me to read scripture, Song of Songs, a/k/a Song of Solomon 2:10-13; 8:6-7. The book is so sexy that it only shows up in the church liturgy once every three years. “Set me as a seal upon thine heart” and “Many waters cannot quench love” are anthems our choir has sung. I agreed to this.

Plan B

Then on April 29, she wrote: “Yesterday I met with the Catholic priest…about placement at the wedding, and he told me that, in fact, we need FOUR people to bring the offerings to the altar: bread, wine, water AND two candle holders with candles.” So I instead switched to doing this with my wife. It’s like jazz; it’s all good.

But there wasn’t anything we needed to DO at the rehearsal except watch. Watson, the dog, accompanied by Deborah’s kids, will be the ring bearer.

Still, we got to attend the rehearsal luncheon and meet some new folks, a couple from Tennessee who are summering in Cyprus.

We return to our hotel for two hours before Deborah picks us up. She has planned an elaborate dinner on boats. Still, the meal prep is far behind schedule because of the significant festival that makes her getting to her apartment difficult.

Ultimately, we haul two bags each for four boats. One bag had chicken, beans, and potatoes; the other had plates, napkins, silverware, wine, and water.

Four people volunteered to operate the boats; they even had captain’s hats. I was NOT one of them. Deborah was trying to replicate a previous event she had experienced. Unfortunately, it was far cooler and the water rougher.

Moreover, the tide was such that one boat got stuck in the mud. Ours almost did the same. Fortunately, Father Thomas was an experienced boatman in his youth and got us out. Igor, Ruth, my wife, and I were very grateful.

Deborah drove us back to our hotel after 11 pm/23:00. She’s getting married in the morning…

Added in response to a question about the Church of St Peter St Paul via Google Translate: “Dating from 1755, the bell tower, all in granite, consists of a square tower surmounted by an octagonal part ending in a lantern. The aisles came to widen the nave from 1832, giving it its current appearance. On the gable of the south is leaned a cross whose granite base bears the date of 1851.” Thanks, Deborah!

Sunday Stealing: Swap Bot

unscheduled

This Sunday Stealing is from Swap Bot, which I misread as Swamp Bot.

Have you tried anything new this year?

I went to a corner grocery store that was six blocks away. I had not been there in decades, if at all, and I’m unsure why. It’s nicer than the store a block closer to me.

Oh, yeah, I also went to France last month. I’d never been anywhere except North America before. The picture is of the bride and the groom’s father at the wedding rehearsal in Erdevan.

What would you do if you didn’t have wifi for a week?

Read books and magazines a lot. Play board games. Talk on the telephone.

Do you like summer? Why or why not?

I don’t mind it unless the sun is scorching. That said, I tend towards the shade because of my vitiligo.

What’s one restaurant that you like in your city? What food do they sell?

Allie B’s Cozy Kitchen serves soul food.

Do you prefer a digital book or a real paper book?

I really can’t concentrate while reading digital books, and have tried. Also, I’m on the computer a lot, so I like paper books.

What’s one thing that you want to buy, but it’s a bit expensive, so you haven’t bought it yet?

A new office chair. It’s a bit shaky. It’s not terribly expensive, but I’m a bit low on funds after going to France.

What tea brands do you like?

I don’t know about brands. I tend to like most teas by most brands. When in doubt, get me English Breakfast.

What’s one food that you can binge eat a lot?

Ritz crackers and cheese together.

Small amounts of money

Write one random thing that happened to you this month.

On June 7, I received an email telling me: “Between June 14^th and June 19^th, 2023, you will be sent a settlement payment from the class action settlement in In re EpiPen Marketing, Sales Practices and Antitrust Litigation, Civil Case No. 2:17-md-02785-DDC-TJJ, pending in the United States District Court for the District of Kansas.”

On June 9, I received an email: “New York Attorney General Letitia James has reached an agreement with Family Energy, Inc. The Office of the Attorney General of the State of New York (“NYAG”) has determined that you are eligible to receive a payment of $57.13 as compensation for money you have lost due to this company’s deceptive business practices.”

Also, on June 9, “Yahoo Data Breach Settlement sent you USD 61.08. Your Yahoo Data Breach settlement payment is now available in PayPal.”

These minor payments to me are undoubtedly a massive pain for the payees.

How many long-term penpals do you have right now? (people who pen pal with you for more than 3 years)

Define penpal. If by that, you mean regular communication, then nobody, and there hasn’t been any since about five years after I got email. Before email, I probably had a couple of dozen folks regularly.

What food do you want to sell if you own a small food trailer?

Not really in my skill set or my interest. Still, I’ll pick eggs because I DO know how to make them scrambled, fried, poached, et al.—some real and faux sausage and toast.

Precious

What’s one handmade gift that you received and really liked?

Messages from my daughter. But I’ve kept several things my daughter has created.

What’s your ideal Saturday like?

Unscheduled, which has not happened nearly often enough. I’d catch up on reading newspapers, watching Finding Your Roots on TV, and finally clean my office.

What things do you like to buy on Etsy?

Not much. My daughter bought rolling pins from Ukraine for her mother, which I paid for. We have ordered delicious bundt cakes from Great Exbaketations Bakery in the past. I bought two obscure CDs in 2022.

What kind of Asian food do you like?

Indian, specifically lamb saag, chicken tikka masala, and others. I also like Chinese food. I’ve enjoyed Thai food the few times I had it.