tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91331802024-03-18T04:45:02.444-04:00Words and MusicObservations and opinions essayed in pursuit of a sensibly cultured life.B. A. Nilssonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04932818130398280413noreply@blogger.comBlogger2002125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133180.post-88560342464999696532023-11-10T16:55:00.003-05:002024-03-06T17:01:32.816-05:00The NYC Ballet in Rehearsal - 1984<p><span style="color: #4c1130;"><i>From the Dance Vault Dept.: </i>I began my journalism career writing about everything in the arts that appealed to me, including dance. Here’s one of my first such pieces, when I was given an interview with then-New York City Ballet Principal Dancer Heather Watts, one of the true stars of that universe. (Next week I’ll publish my most recent ballet-oriented piece.)</span><br /><strike><br /> </strike> <br /><br />THE MUSIC IS QUICKLY RECOGNIZABLE as Bach’s Double Concerto: The two violin<br />soloists stand in the pit, one of them is introducing the first theme with the orchestra. The stage at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center looks enormous, the deep blue of the backdrop matching the color of the surrounding twilight. Eight women, in two groups of four, are onstage. They are dressed in white, their costumes reminiscent of tennis outfits. </p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3kc05R0XjxjK-teT0Om1wuqCEvHmGvgCnbJizid4g97NBccBZa8n43PDxElH-XbGuNgt255kRgyZ_cxK12oDno-vW1_JjShFYhxFVrv1UWQjNrMu_wvbwom9TsnR0J7yS512vft4Xf8st6IZgHq2xt0lA7wfUfJVMJPAMTBCPMhGNWUxZ9PYHcA/s667/Watts%20and%20Martins.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="550" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3kc05R0XjxjK-teT0Om1wuqCEvHmGvgCnbJizid4g97NBccBZa8n43PDxElH-XbGuNgt255kRgyZ_cxK12oDno-vW1_JjShFYhxFVrv1UWQjNrMu_wvbwom9TsnR0J7yS512vft4Xf8st6IZgHq2xt0lA7wfUfJVMJPAMTBCPMhGNWUxZ9PYHcA/s320/Watts%20and%20Martins.jpg" width="264" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Heather Watts and Peter Martins</i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>With the first solo violin passage, another woman dances on, then another as the second violin begins a contrapuntal statement. That enormous stage is suddenly filled with movement, and two of the special qua1ities of the New York City Ballet are evidenced: talent and presence. They don’t merely occupy the stage: they overwhelm it. This is “Concerto Barocco,” one of NYCB founder George Balanchine’s signature ballets.<br /><br />It’s a startling contrast to their rehearsal earlier in the day. The music came from an upright piano stage right, and there were no costumes, lights or scenery. The proscenium was ringed with dancers, colorfully dressed in the practice uniforms of tights,, leotards, leg-warmers and such, each dancer with a large handbag nearby. While they watched the rehearsal, some worked on their ballet shoes, some stretched. Nobody talked. Ballet Master Peter Martins sat on a metal stool. He wore blue jeans and a denim shirt with the sleeves pushed up. Beside him, in green tights and leotard, with a white sweater tied around her waist, stood Ballet Mistress Rosemary Dunleavy. She and Martins whispered ideas. She strode hack and forth along the stage, watching, nodding.<span></span><p></p><a name='more'></a>Heather Watts was working with a new partner, Otto Neubert, on the second movement, an Adagio. For most of the seven years she has been dancing this piece, Watts has worked with Martins, but he retired from dancing last year. “It takes a long time to get used to a new partner,” she says. “For one thing. Otto is taller – or seems taller – than Peter or Sean Lavery, who I also work with a lot. So in a way it’s like learning the dance all over again.”<br /><br />Dunleavy stops the rehearsal with two handclaps. Watts and Neubert will repeat a sequence. Dunleavy has proven herself indispensable to the company because of her phenomenal ability to re-create a ballet – and her knowledge of George Balanchine’s choreography seems limitless. “I never thought my memory was anything special.” she says, “until I realized that others couldn’t do what I do.”<br /><br />After a season in Manhattan, the three weeks the company spends in Saratoga is a holiday, despite the rigorous class, rehearsal, and work schedule. “It’s really very relaxing,” Watts says. “I was a little disappointed at first because the house 1 was supposed to go into didn’t work out, but everything’s fine now. The company is like a family. People group together to do different things in the area while we’re up here, and it’s really nice to be performing outdoors.”<br /><br />She wears a leotard with red and blue diagonal stripes and a pair of bright red sweatpants. While rehearsing, her face takes on a variety of expressions. When she’s displeased with a step, she shows it; they stop and try it again. You can see the concentration in her eyes, but there also seems to be a little awe, perhaps delight at the litheness of her body and the beauty of the dance. In performance, you see none of this. Her expression then is of rapt serenity.<br /><br />“It’s hard, sometimes, to keep the excess emotion away,” she confides. “‘Concerto Barocco,’ which I love to dance, and which I think would be any dancer’s dream, has such beautiful music that it would be easy to get swept away by it. Especially in the Adagio, which is so poignant. I suppose what I’m saying is that you have to separate acting from dancing. It’s the dancing which tells the story or puts across the mood.”<br /><br />“Mozartiana” is another Balanchine opus, on which he worked for many years before arriving in 1981 at the form he preferred. The music is Tchaikovsky’s Suite No. 4, a setting of lesser-known themes by Mozart. Tonight’s performance features Maria Calegari, making her debut in the piece. She rehearses in costume, a sheer black skirt and leotard. Working with her are four young dancers from the Saratoga area, recruited especially for the season. “Our company uses more youngsters than most,” explains Leslie Bailey, NYCB’s press representative. “It comes from Mr. Balanchine’s background at the Imperial Theatre, where they welcomed children to learn about and participate in theater, opera, dance – everything they had to offer. The same was true with Peter Martins in his native Denmark, and he’s carrying on the tradition Mr. B. started with this company.”<br /><br />Sitting beside the rehearsal pianist is Hugo Giorato, who will conduct tonight’s performance. He offers an occasional correction in tempo. Sara Leland is standing by Martins. Recently named Assistant Ballet Mistress, she shares with Dunleavy the responsibility of maintaining the works in the company’s repertory. Calegari is taking over the role from an indisposed Suzanne Farrell, which is a tough act to follow, but it’s part of the challenge of being a recent appointee to the rank of Principal. The appointment was made last year shortly before the death of Balanchine, making Calegari the last of his hand-picked Principals.<br /><br />A lawn mower kicks into life on the lawn outside. It’s a curious kind of distraction for a dance rehearsal. On a performance day, the dancers take a 90-minute class in the morning: they will rehearse for a maximum of five hours. At SPAC they work for only five days a week – it’s six in the city. Says Martins, “In Manhattan, we’re in a huge white marble building with no windows, and we’re likely to be there from 10 AM to 11 PM. Up here, with light and trees, it’s a luxury.” He casts a look over his shoulder in the direction of the motor. His gaze is so commanding that, had the offending maintenance man been within range he would surely have shut down his machine.<br /><br />Merrill Ashley and Adam Lüders begin work on their section of “Stars and Stripes, the Fourth Campaign,” to Hershey Kay’s setting of John Philip Sousa’s “Liberty Bell” and “El Capitan.” Ashley is not satisfied with the tempo and adjusts it with Fiorato and the rehearsal pianist. The entire company comes on to practice the energetic finale, which right now looks more like “A Chorus Line” with its fantastic variety of rehearsal clothing.<br /><br />Finished until the performance tonight, Watts is off to work with a dance class in a local school. “I’m in ‘Concerto Barocco tonight,’” she says, “but I’m also doing ‘Stravinsky Violin Concerto’ tomorrow afternoon, ‘Serenade’ tomorrow night, and so on. I’ll be in almost every performance in some role or other while we’re here, which I like. I enjoy the challenge of having so many different parts to work on. and I’d have to say that my favorite ballet is always the new one I’m learning.”<br /><br />New ballets this summer will include the Saratoga premieres of “Brahms/Handel,” the Twyla Tharp-Jerome Robbins collaboration that opened in New York in June to enthusiastic reviews; and “Rejouissance,” Peter Martins’s newest ballet, a set of eight dances to a variety of pieces by Bach. There also will be the world premieres of ballets by Assistant Ballet Master Bart Cook and Principal Dancer Helgi Tomasson.<br /><br />One of the highlights of every summer season is the Gala, to be held this year on Friday, July 13, with the theme “Dancing in the Moonlight.” Not only will there he a full-length performance, the evening also will include music by two dance bands, performances by magicians and circus people, a concert at the gazebo by the New York Chamber Soloists, a champagne reception, dancing under the stars (or in a specially-erected tent, if you prefer), and much more.<br /><br />It’s now evening at SPAC. The sparkling curtain is studded with a thousand tiny mirrors reflecting colored lights. The curtain rises on an at atmosphere wholly unlike that of the afternoon. Then, to dance was to work. Now it’s a pleasure. The program begins with the charm of “Mozartiana” and progresses to the patriotic splendor of “Stars and Stripes,” in which that ragtag group of dancers now comes on in fiercely disciplined, patriotically costumed ranks. Just prior to that we were treated to the simple elegance of “Sonatine,” danced in tux and gown by Patricia McBride and lb Andersen, to music of Ravel played onstage by Gordon Boelzer. The audience responds with a flood of applause, enraptured by the beauty that only the very talented can bring out of this most demanding of physical skills.<br /><br />For me, however, the high point is Heather Watts’s ethereal grace in “Concerto Barocco,” which takes on a kind of certain mysticism right before my eyes, something I hadn’t expected after the comparatively dry rehearsal. “You must watch a ballet with your eves and ears – and your heart,” she told me earlier. I often have trouble with that third element, but tonight she captured mine.<br /><br />– <i>Metroland </i>Magazine, 12 July 1984<br /><br /><p></p>B. A. Nilssonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04932818130398280413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133180.post-20319931130284784722023-11-03T22:17:00.004-04:002024-03-05T10:27:24.847-05:00Manchester, Part Two<p>I BOUGHT A KOBO E-READER for this trip and promised to buy no books. We have made trips to England in the past where I ended up shipping home a couple of cartons of acquisitions at great expense, but this was before you could easily find such things on an e-site. But then I bought Eric Schlosser’s “Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market” at the Hidcote bookshop and Moz passed along three books – two of them by mystery writer Andrea Camilleri, featuring his eccentric Inspector Salvo Montalbano (but what literary detective isn’t eccentirc these days?), alongside Alastair Cooke’s “Letters from America,” so I figured what the hell and walked to Paramount Books our second day in Manchester while Susan lay immobilized in our hotel room, felled by a hookah-adjacent headache. <br /></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLMaIAmyv_gJyTXg3yc-FCfLZ6gZNGH2SlTKxovOItjIY9R51vZsSggyu7kw4LaRxO1cJPXqYQoszgxMQQWmyvSqXS-qV1fqUyQMrOjwkmgOmLgPDtFRLrxvrPeJuXV9n4zTS1UU9tGECON9H_GAwnXa6wMP-GbF1MQ6pfW5IdyH3ZtGwcDNfY4w/s1800/Manchester2-1.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1800" data-original-width="1300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLMaIAmyv_gJyTXg3yc-FCfLZ6gZNGH2SlTKxovOItjIY9R51vZsSggyu7kw4LaRxO1cJPXqYQoszgxMQQWmyvSqXS-qV1fqUyQMrOjwkmgOmLgPDtFRLrxvrPeJuXV9n4zTS1UU9tGECON9H_GAwnXa6wMP-GbF1MQ6pfW5IdyH3ZtGwcDNfY4w/s320/Manchester2-1.jpg" width="231" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Lobby of the Manchester Indigo</i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>Paramount is what a shop of used books should be, with organized sections in each of the rooms alongside cascades of the yet-to-be-shelved. During the height of my bookshop-browsing days, when Manhattan’s South Fourth Avenue sported a zigzag of worthy emporia, I was collecting fiction. Now I’m more interested in vintage theater and music books, with nothing particular in mind. I hoped that this would be an occasion to engage a bookseller in conversation, bridging our divergent origins with a shared interest, but nothing doing. The elderly fellow working the sales counter offered not even a greeting, never mind some chat.<br /><br />Sir Charles Cochran was a British theatrical producer, best know for presenting a number of Noël Coward’s best-known plays as well as musicals by Cole Porter and jerome Kern; he also managed the Albert Hall for a dozen years. On the shelf was his 1941 reminiscence titled “Cock-a-Doodle-Do.” I weighed it in my hands. I riffled through it. It was tempting. Had the shop felt friendlier, I would have bought it. I recall a price of £15. As with any appealing book left behind and any uneated dessert, the thought of it haunted me. Back home, I found a copy online for under ten dollars, with the un-noticed bonus that it was autographed by Cochran. It proved to be a dull recitation of dates and name-drops.<span></span><p></p><a name='more'></a>Moz had cooked up a full day of touring, but sympathetically postponed it to the following day. This allowed a semi-recovered Susan the opportunity to take a mid-afternoon tour of Chetham’s Library, which boasts of being the oldest public reference library in the English-speaking world, open since 1653. It was a very short walk from the hotel, but I’d already worn out what was left of my legs stumbling to the Paramount and back, so I devoted that portion of the afternoon to coffee and the Schlosser book.<br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVT-E0n0RSQUmh9tiXDsOXE-04x2kxLhxoYAdTFTK0Ho8MohKY-McV63dzMpfY4k0kmHYyghvKWSdhD6r6CdpslhaG7DA9cqwGykXQ6X_PNb4qQpwUxIidq4SWVZ8xixnBwqAo5iRP2yi3O-WF-H4szmUBdWL2JdEfKYDbhpATdpAvMsdnk7ASWQ/s1800/Manchester2-2.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1800" data-original-width="1500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVT-E0n0RSQUmh9tiXDsOXE-04x2kxLhxoYAdTFTK0Ho8MohKY-McV63dzMpfY4k0kmHYyghvKWSdhD6r6CdpslhaG7DA9cqwGykXQ6X_PNb4qQpwUxIidq4SWVZ8xixnBwqAo5iRP2yi3O-WF-H4szmUBdWL2JdEfKYDbhpATdpAvMsdnk7ASWQ/s320/Manchester2-2.jpg" width="267" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Susan awaits the return of Marx<br />and Engels to their table.</i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>The library building dates to the 15th century, and went through a number of religious iterations before Humphrey Chethan acquired it and put it on its current path. Susan reports that, as the tour group gathered outside the library building, a fellow tourist introduced himself as a visitor from China, excited to see the famous room wherein Marx and Engels hung out, publishing “The Condition of the Working Class in England” in 1845, inspired, in part by the view from the window beside the table they favored. As the tour guide explained when the table was reached, there were encampments of the terribly poor just outside, which moved those observers to create a more favorable approach to society. In 1848 they followed this book with “The Communist Manifesto,” and Engels helped finance Marx’s work on “Das Kapital.”<br /><br />That table sports a small pile of books, reproductions of the volumes favored by the famed revolutionists. The rest of the books in the library are protected by gates in front of the shelves, reminding us that socialism always has its limits. Some of those gates are tagged withg small white cards, the result of a recent project to call attention to the number of vintage books that were written by women. And, while people are welcome, rodents are not. Which is why some of the heavy doors that lead elsewhere sport small holes at floor level, holes large enough to admit tha cats that were used for mouse control. The library notes that this system was used at least through the 1960s, but coyly refrains from admitting whether it’s still used today.<br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip0VqxtH6-qH-NC1HKK3S1uwA04evMtp2Rzu4bNtmCyobDNttdO0Ox1yN_WkZIgWABwklkczTQKg-Qhq4sXLkVrZXhOXN_6xgHyyPoCHz5M4VuvAVUR_4sIWm6D0Roy5cD1liSYRmIKcmezMFT7bjoWZMjikgSWq8arYZuMhun6KiBBDfjmiuATg/s1950/Manchester2-3.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1950" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip0VqxtH6-qH-NC1HKK3S1uwA04evMtp2Rzu4bNtmCyobDNttdO0Ox1yN_WkZIgWABwklkczTQKg-Qhq4sXLkVrZXhOXN_6xgHyyPoCHz5M4VuvAVUR_4sIWm6D0Roy5cD1liSYRmIKcmezMFT7bjoWZMjikgSWq8arYZuMhun6KiBBDfjmiuATg/s320/Manchester2-3.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Shambles Square</i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>Which I can understand. I worked in a restaurant kitchen in the 1970s, and we had a resident cat who made short work of rats and mice. But we had to hide the beast whenever the health inspector paid a call. We believed it was more ecologically sound than toxic chemicals. <br /><br />The history tour continued when we met Moz and Mohammed late that afternoon for a visit to Shambles Square. At its core is a 16th-century building that became a pub in 1862, eventually named the Old Wellington Inn, and what’s left of it is one of the only remaining Tudor buildings in the city. Its neighbor, Sinclair’s Oyster bar, is a relative youngster, dating merely to the late 17th century. The collective moniker for these and other nearby buildings was Shambles, itself once denoting a street of butchers but eventually gaining the usage we know now. Thanks to intrusive building development – and a bombing in 1996 – the Shambles array was moved about 300 metres north to become Shambles Square. <br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgssyYjcqt8Q4IK5-RiJCvtW7uXmmZ9vvl31x1toY44WdxzRlKW78nAsTuYCjuevb0v3Fkyk4OmfjWJRQzMdp23EB59DWYjAVMzTwUdm2zde6Rliu8Ln2pTxI62RT1XZQs8sMOTX6jjgRD8Hhr_wICoCQTnW7xl9t2DgiSiY2oAjd43EjNub7FVOA/s1900/Manchester2-4.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1900" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgssyYjcqt8Q4IK5-RiJCvtW7uXmmZ9vvl31x1toY44WdxzRlKW78nAsTuYCjuevb0v3Fkyk4OmfjWJRQzMdp23EB59DWYjAVMzTwUdm2zde6Rliu8Ln2pTxI62RT1XZQs8sMOTX6jjgRD8Hhr_wICoCQTnW7xl9t2DgiSiY2oAjd43EjNub7FVOA/s320/Manchester2-4.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Baccala mantecato</i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>We had our round of beers at Sinclair’s Oyster House, which was packed. One of the patrons yielded her seat to me, which is the final ingredient to once and for all signifiy that I am irreversibly elderly, but I ended up beside a pleasant young fellow named Andrew, a Manchester resident whose recent visit to New York assured him that it’s not a bad city to visit at all. But he’s still loyal to his home turf. <br /><br />Had we been mere tourists here, we’d never have found Cibus Pizza in nearby Levenshulme. But that’s not far from where Moz lives, and he was eager to introduce us to this restaurant. He’s known to the chef there, a man who joined us at our table later in the evening. While Moz and Mohammed explored the pizza side of the menu, Susan opted for a starter of arugula salad (known there as rocket) topped with parmesan shavings, and I chose <i>baccala mantecato</i>, which tops slices of sourdough with whipped salt cod. There’s enough of an acquired-taste aspect to <i>baccala </i>that I’m safe from my wife’s usual food theft. (She calls it “sharing.” I’m too obsessive about eating to succumb to such generosity.) Susan’s ravioli al sugo presented the pasta squares filled with ricotta and topped with a toothsome pork ragu, while my risotto all’asparago featured carnaroli rice, a stubbier grain than arborio that produces a creamier risotto, topped with white asparagus and flavored with Marsala wine and Parmigiano Reggiano cheese. There’s an add- sausage option. I took it. Delicious. <br /><br />Tomorrow would be our tour of the Peak District, but I’ll save that for Manchester, Part Three.<br /><br /><p></p>B. A. Nilssonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04932818130398280413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133180.post-87389144362750884062023-10-27T23:38:00.002-04:002024-02-26T14:40:44.509-05:00Fried and True<p><span style="color: #20124d;"><i>From the Food Vault Dept</i>.: While we’re on the subject of fish and chips, here’s a look back at a wonderful restaurant in Bennington, Vermont, that I reviewed in 2011. At that point, Kevin Wright had been running his shop for three years; in 2018, wishing to pursue other interests, he sold the place to Nathan Johnson, a Vermont native and regular customer, who has been operating Lil’ Britain ever since. Needless to say, the prices quoted below have changed. </span><br /><br /><strike> </strike> <br /><br />LONDON’S FIRST FISH-AND-CHIPS SHOP opened in 1860, unless an 1863-dated Lancashire shop came first. But the glory of deep-frying potatoes (the chips portion) was noted at least two centuries earlier, possibly as a substitute for fish during freezes: it seems that the Belgians carved their potato slices into fish shapes. <br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5sQRmAQ1mtqpUYvU8dXHGoIqoxFUKOGmQv2meGqed-FCOapGZIpfX9WsnhVfJW34Uo38gI-JxHNYakzudFK6s5b77udfS1Yd-8aVn4amOpneaY29zHswnKaP3VVdeSrgB162Lwk2VQixpAmi9ULpIMVkOf5glo-7q0FmqTPPc_GS8yjoZ2Rkbsw/s1800/Lil%20Britain-1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1205" data-original-width="1800" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5sQRmAQ1mtqpUYvU8dXHGoIqoxFUKOGmQv2meGqed-FCOapGZIpfX9WsnhVfJW34Uo38gI-JxHNYakzudFK6s5b77udfS1Yd-8aVn4amOpneaY29zHswnKaP3VVdeSrgB162Lwk2VQixpAmi9ULpIMVkOf5glo-7q0FmqTPPc_GS8yjoZ2Rkbsw/s320/Lil%20Britain-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>The popularity of battering and frying slabs of cod or haddock took off during the Industrial Revolution, spurred by the boom in North Sea fisheries and the ease with which fresh seafood could be transported.<br /><br />Well-traveled Yanks can attest to the appeal of a true British chippy. It’s remarkable for being prosaic, a taken-for-granted part of the UK landscape that never successfully migrated to these shores.<br /><br />Unless you count the brief popularity of the chain to which Merv Griffen sidekick Arthur Treacher lent his name, its terrible food probably doing much to ensure that the hamburger remained the fast food king.<span><a name='more'></a></span><br /><br />Hamburgers are offered at Bennington’s Lil’ Britain, but only Tuesday through Thursday and even then they don’t sell as well as the fish. That’s because the eatery is so accomplished in its simple mission that you wouldn’t dare order anything other than the signature dish – at least not until you’ve made a few visits.<br /><br />Bennington is an appropriate place for this enterprise. The downtown shops aren’t your typical small-city array, reflecting alternative ways of thinking. And why shouldn’t fish and chips be among them?<br /><br />Lil’ Britain opened on July 5, 2008. “We thought about opening the day before,” says frymaster-owner Kevin Wright, “but that just seemed to be rubbing it in.”<br /><br />Wright hails from Stoke-on-Trent, in England’s West Midlands area. He met his future wife, Sarah, in 1997, and moved to this country a year later. She was already a US resident, having transplanted from Sedgley, England, when she was a youngster.<br /><br />The restaurant is about more than fish and chips. Two large TV screens were showing football matches (soccer to us Yanks); beneath them are racks of such indigenously British products as HP Sauce (regular and fruity), HobNobs (“one nibble and you’re nobbled”), mushy peas, PG Tips tea, Marmite (“love it or hate it”) and its Antipodean cousin, Vegemite. And there’s an reproduction (domestically acquired) British telephone box in one corner. Wright noted that the real thing is so heavy that it would have required floor reinforcement. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a double-decker bus go by.<br /><br />The secret behind the fish and chips is the fryer. It’s a two-barreled monster with large, shallow frying areas. Potatoes are cut to order in their own machine; fish is dredged in Wright’s own batter. Then they’re cast into their respective hot baths. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB1v2_BOxJhghzIe2aQoHe8AiwNir4EhBZ3IgWXx0tqp2y6ZYILvVhQSQgEwXCExVxgnZUJ51qcAoT0dnR3QQsH5_BYU1EmotCZ0irHa6tYNSHCtYkoMniA_HDdjIkcNAqaksjgTu7JGlulouxx_YNe8bmgrx7MnY-TvipmsPyTzqCeRf3lHpuKQ/s1800/Lil%20Britain-2.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1216" data-original-width="1800" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB1v2_BOxJhghzIe2aQoHe8AiwNir4EhBZ3IgWXx0tqp2y6ZYILvVhQSQgEwXCExVxgnZUJ51qcAoT0dnR3QQsH5_BYU1EmotCZ0irHa6tYNSHCtYkoMniA_HDdjIkcNAqaksjgTu7JGlulouxx_YNe8bmgrx7MnY-TvipmsPyTzqCeRf3lHpuKQ/s320/Lil%20Britain-2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Fish and chips comes in two sizes, $7.75 and $10. We didn’t bother with the small. A generously large slice of golden haddock dominated the plate; a hillock of similarly gold and crunchy fries was piled alongside, hustled to our table by Sarah as soon as it all emerged. <br /><br />Arthur Treacher’s taught me to inundate my meal with tartar sauce. Lil’ Britain reminds me why that’s not necessary. A few shakes of the malt vinegar that’s at your table may provide all the accompaniment you need; certainly the proffered tartar sauce and ketchup can be used sparingly.<br /><br />The price includes a side dish; we chose pickled beets, a reliable standby; other options are cole slaw, gravy, mushy peas or a buttered roll, each of which is also available for $1.50 or so.<br /><br />Speaking of gravy: there’s a Canadian favorite known as poutine that adds cheese curds and gravy to a plate of fries, and Lil’ Britain lately has been getting curds locally from Maplebrook Farm, so poutine is a recent offering.<br /><br />Other chips-paired options are shrimp or scallops ($7.75/$10), chicken tenders ($6/$7.50), clam strips ($7.75), a fish sandwich ($8.25), seafood combo of haddock, shrimp and scallops ($11) and bangers – a traditional English sausage ($7.50) – each also giving you a side-dish. Bangers and mash ($7.50) adds gravy and mashed potatoes to the sausage.<br /><br />Savory pies are another staple. We sampled the steak pie ($5.50), which is a single-serving portion of beef in thick gravy topped with a traditional pot pie-style crust, and it was refreshingly flavorful. Other varieties are steak and potato ($5.50), chicken and mushroom ($5.50) and a puff pastry-wrapped sausage roll ($4.50) Each is baked to order, so be prepared to wait the 15 minutes or so. It’s worth it. <br /><br />Add chips or mashed potatoes to your pie for $2.50, or enjoy a chip butty – chips on a buttered roll – for $4. <br /><br />As noted above, burgers are available early in the week, and run $6 to $7.75 depending on complexity, served with chips or cole slaw. The most expensive burger is topped with onions, mushrooms, cheese, bacon and a fried egg. <br /><br />A large map of the United Kingdom hangs on a side wall, studded with pins to signify the points or origin of British visitors. Neither my wife nor I could legitimately claim such a distinction, although three or four visits from now I could see myself sneaking in a pin from my own, however imaginary, West Midlands home.<br /> <br /><b>Lil’ Britain,</b> 116 North St., Bennington, VT, 802-442-2447, facebook.com/lilbritain. Fish and chips, homemade meat pies, poutine, chips butty – even Marmite is available at this one-of-a-kind eatery. Serving Tue-Sat 11:30-8. D, MC, V.<br /><br />– <i>Metroland </i>Magazine, 8 September 2011<p></p>B. A. Nilssonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04932818130398280413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133180.post-57050417506537934932023-10-20T14:30:00.003-04:002024-02-26T14:37:39.631-05:00Manchester: Part One<p>THIS PART OF OUR JOURNEY actually begins in 1972. Allow me to quote myself: I was a high-school junior in suburban Connecticut, freshly infatuated with the stage, so it was only natural that I would join my fellow theater-arts students on a week-long show-going excursion to London that February. A mere $300 bought airfare, hotel room, and tickets.<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3DEH8wyJQSAcuW9hlpqnxaQ6brl5EI3fMz-APdMQ9OFwO_R1YQG1waALGP1VAUukIDyL9jhvXaq4Nh0-gxzG2pDDt3hkfvTXl9oyu7P0rP94qtu7az1K5qSozxcLZsvulscBTZTO7j_nVtBNiiXT32G4UgekGoJnVFVeW_Qvi26N3ANeqLb8kyQ/s1800/Manchester-1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1800" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3DEH8wyJQSAcuW9hlpqnxaQ6brl5EI3fMz-APdMQ9OFwO_R1YQG1waALGP1VAUukIDyL9jhvXaq4Nh0-gxzG2pDDt3hkfvTXl9oyu7P0rP94qtu7az1K5qSozxcLZsvulscBTZTO7j_nVtBNiiXT32G4UgekGoJnVFVeW_Qvi26N3ANeqLb8kyQ/s320/Manchester-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>The first show we saw was a musical version of “The Canterbury Tales.” I didn’t like it very much. Next was “Never the Twain,” a quirky mash-up of works by Kipling and Brecht, which was far more appealing, but by then I realized that some of my favorite actors were performing on the West End, and I forsook the rest of the scheduled offerings in favor of such fare – beginning with Alec Guinness in John Mortimer’s “A Voyage Round My Father,” which I wrote about <a href="http://banilsson.blogspot.com/2012/02/meeting-alec-guinness.html" target="_blank">here</a> in 2012.<br /><br />Three years later, I received this email message:<br /><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh87znTbAotvWv9ZA5m5C-jv2AK17y5FO5blPrDkJKTLVIr7wN3RNAirnasA2NkfRbouTcbcrh_EoWVVvXmQcGZKrVHs1SIpjhyphenhyphenPelcjrLQqSDP2i-W89QVP2lHpJFTIRpRulwi2BT2Uwom9VSJ4vFGm8-6jqAsi-EI2e-cSss49fHYm0490Z1bRA/s1800/Manchester-1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a></div><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">I was crawling around, looking up a show I was once in, when I came across yr blog, where you write about a trip to London in Feb 1972, and a theatre-binge you went on. Hah - I'd been in Canterbury Tales in 1970, which you thought crap, and was in Never the Twain, a Brecht-Kipling conflation you thought more interesting.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p>It was from Maurice Walsh, who also noted that he’d found some of my internet traces and discovered that he and I enjoyed performing similar repertory – songs by Flanders and Swann, Noël Coward, and neglected music-hall numbers. Now based in Manchester, he’d spent many years teaching music in schools (he taught at a school where Auden taught). We became Facebook friends, which showed me that he had a wonderfully quirky sense of humor and an admirable social conscience. <a href="http://banilsson.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-innocent-ear.html">Here’s</a> the rest of that piece.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihi4atcsw3-EpIjVY9G-hNezxHV0gQ-fjU9c6egw2uynKGZsQLF3xYnN1tWP78ROj-ZMYHNr8xCNNMr2JNas41pONndTALR_W0jCrp6LsYvo4cSxDg0vmDmX5yh6ABYdqg6GzTXSY2KcfCYj27EV89Ox9ziNr5AL4ws4sVIOhQ9j_NXDCTcLdOtg/s1800/Manchester-2.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1800" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihi4atcsw3-EpIjVY9G-hNezxHV0gQ-fjU9c6egw2uynKGZsQLF3xYnN1tWP78ROj-ZMYHNr8xCNNMr2JNas41pONndTALR_W0jCrp6LsYvo4cSxDg0vmDmX5yh6ABYdqg6GzTXSY2KcfCYj27EV89Ox9ziNr5AL4ws4sVIOhQ9j_NXDCTcLdOtg/s320/Manchester-2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Thus it was that the third stop on my UK journey was Manchester. It was about time that we met Moz, as Mr. Walsh has long since styled himself. Susan and I checked in at the Hotel Indigo, an elegant hostelry with modern design and appointments (but forget that tub!), and hurried to the sidewalk where Moz was waiting. Such a joy finally to effect this face-to-face! It’s one of those friendships, the intervening Atlantic notwithstanding, where we discovered commonality enough to reinforce the sense that we’d been amiable neighbors for years.<br /><br />England and the U.S. have been neck-and-neck in the race to see who can treat immigrants more shabbily, but Moz has been very active in helping those who’ve been oppressed, particularly in the Calais Jungle, a horrific migrant camp that sprang up seven years ago. One of the people he helped was a Palestinian refugee named Mohammed who, thanks to Moz’s interventions, was able to settle in Manchester and eventually bring over his wife and children. He was working as a driver when we met, and volunteered his car and his services to shepherd us around the city and its environs. (We never would have fit in Moz’s tiny car, nor did he, now in his 80s, wish to do as much driving as he anticipated.)<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1HiniZW13j1QuMquK3dDMzotRqaLz0gFCHKxGpfEjW233BPmlPYmbBaYkGvN5ceaSrE4q78A7Hcs2PGn0JA4XKZkqelnOcm1j8s-M5QEg0790B4BTmRRO1miuyx7O-rE77S2fTwnSxdXm6VdRNH_3xsEthQe3ao2xLttrVc4zB69x8Eckq_mtqw/s1800/Manchester-3.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1800" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1HiniZW13j1QuMquK3dDMzotRqaLz0gFCHKxGpfEjW233BPmlPYmbBaYkGvN5ceaSrE4q78A7Hcs2PGn0JA4XKZkqelnOcm1j8s-M5QEg0790B4BTmRRO1miuyx7O-rE77S2fTwnSxdXm6VdRNH_3xsEthQe3ao2xLttrVc4zB69x8Eckq_mtqw/s320/Manchester-3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Honoring our shared political leanings, our first stop was the People’s History Museum. Opened as the National Museum of Labour History in 1975 in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, with a collection that included Thomas Paine’s desk. It continued to collect significant material over the next dozen years, until (what else!) its funding was threatened. At which time the Manchester City Council and the Trades Union Congress laid the groundwork for a move north. The new museum opened in 1990 in a building on Princess Street – the same building where the TUC first met a century earlier. The ensuing years saw the name changed to its current moniker and the collections consolidated under one roof. <br /><br />It’s a very interactive-style place, with various areas dedicated to particular people and incidents. The Peterloo Massacre of 1819 is an unfortunate highlight. Some 60,000 people gathered to demand representation in Parliament; instead, a calvary charge from the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry caused the death of eighteen people and the injury of hundreds of others. Prints and banners and other artefacts pay tribute to the event. Manchester was enough of an activists’ center that many more causes are represented as well. Give yourself plenty of time here.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBpCZiwD8c2zj4BnXkY3qJa55g6nNNoxjRw09QY7kcxp8DxPIpcI84oIxPKy7KdhH3ilfHUSYPq8Uq6JR2rWTPAZQRW1OSivYL8aiPXg0pqz-l1jJH8NDPgl93hoDnjugpGYfjxhGNj3lM3Y8FCjRxMp7mykF56FZ4_vm_XtYMWFUxjhw_7j-ebw/s1800/Manchester-4.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1800" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBpCZiwD8c2zj4BnXkY3qJa55g6nNNoxjRw09QY7kcxp8DxPIpcI84oIxPKy7KdhH3ilfHUSYPq8Uq6JR2rWTPAZQRW1OSivYL8aiPXg0pqz-l1jJH8NDPgl93hoDnjugpGYfjxhGNj3lM3Y8FCjRxMp7mykF56FZ4_vm_XtYMWFUxjhw_7j-ebw/s320/Manchester-4.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>But we were next escorted a couple of blocks, to the John Rylands Library. He was Manchester’s first multi-millionaire, a taciturn man who made his fortune in the textile business. He and his first wife, Dinah, had six children, none of whom survived him. Five years after Dinah died in 1843, John remarried, to a woman named Martha, and in 1860 took on Enriqueta Agustina Tennant as companion to her. By the time Martha died in 1875, John was as old as the century but waited a mere eight months to marry Enriqueta. And they had a dozen more years together before he died and left her the lion’s share of his fortune.<br /><br />What to do with all that dough? Build a memorial library. Commission a neo-Gothic building from noted architect Basil Champneys, and stock with collections you never fully examined and for which you overpaid. Not by today’s standards, of course. Those core collections remain invaluable, and Enriqueta continued acquiring books for the library until her death in 1908. You enter and are struck dumb by its magnificence. As large as a cathedral, but for a much more productive religion: learning. Many of the study areas were occupied, making me wish I had a topic to pursue there and several hours during which to pursue it. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdbxLPPsIsl0lx92rU-Uh6MM6EoVfa8w0IOob5htNDXZDsZkqJKiKRTW_9-OLK2jbKlvNEZbvXqV69SwZsT9xbRA8xXxe_x0cBCiP6sy1qnjfhHjGwJnbBwqoKS_tXcoogNc0p8HYK5NOV6qRss39v5XlHpLxZ79rILr1SWl-X5XX_GKrP7NjA4w/s1800/Manchester-5.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1138" data-original-width="1800" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdbxLPPsIsl0lx92rU-Uh6MM6EoVfa8w0IOob5htNDXZDsZkqJKiKRTW_9-OLK2jbKlvNEZbvXqV69SwZsT9xbRA8xXxe_x0cBCiP6sy1qnjfhHjGwJnbBwqoKS_tXcoogNc0p8HYK5NOV6qRss39v5XlHpLxZ79rILr1SWl-X5XX_GKrP7NjA4w/s320/Manchester-5.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>An important pursuit not available at the library was found at the Marble Arch Inn, a pub built in 1888 that retains enough historic significance to have merited a Grade II listing. Meaning you can’t mess with it without permission. It became home to Marble Brewery in 1997, which operated there for 12 years before outgrowing the location. But you’ll still find their excellent beers there, as proved by the pint of Marble Stout I sampled. Even Susan was inspired to try one of the brews, in this case a Lemon & Bergamot Witbier. Lots of citrus in the flavor, but it still didn’t win her over to beer.<br /><br />Was it the beer? Was it the aroma of the many hookahs surrounding us at supper that kept her in bed the following morning? We dined with Moz and Mohammed at Zouk, an Indian-Pakistani restaurant so crowded and noisy inside that we elected to take advantage of the outdoor seating area. The meal was terrific. We went to bed with the triumphant feeling of having spent a very productive first day in this city. We awoke – or she awoke, as it happened – with a terrible headache. Our plans had to be altered. I’ll pick up this narrative in the second part of the Manchester part of this story.<br /><br /><br /><p></p>B. A. Nilssonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04932818130398280413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133180.post-51333868712637033382023-10-13T21:43:00.002-04:002024-02-24T14:45:35.236-05:00Rachel McDermott and Dancing Grain<p><span style="color: #444444;"><i>In Memoriam Dept.</i>: For quite a few years I wrote for the website knowwhereyourfoodcomesfrom.com, founded and eagerly maintained by Frank Barrie, a retired administrative law judge for the NYS Division of Tax Appeals. He was as passionate about the arts as he was about good food, and we’d often see each other at various concerts and plays. Below is the last piece I wrote for him. By the time I submitted it, I learned that he had died suddenly on October 1, just a week after he posted his last piece to the website.</span><br /><br /><strike> </strike> <br /><br />TRAVEL NORTH ON ROUTE 9 from Saratoga Springs NY and you’ll see the city’s urban characteristics fall away, revealing the rural aspects of the county. By the time you reach Dancing Grain Farm Brewery, which is in the town of Gansevoort or Moreau, depending on the map, it’s farm country. But the brewery’s parking lot is full of cars and you see people lined up to taste the beer or settled on the deck to enjoy it. This is Rachel McDermott’s dream come true but, like anything to do with farming, the easygoing nature of the place hides the tremendous amount of work that’s behind it.<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC9-tn31oKLIsPqUdtcfhuD6g6Dl-2mC6l5fILeY1sqyRX5j2gt8sR8va9nXLCobVJyp4boXqXKtmFbrkUoCgkgm2JBtFjLJAakgaYI_pp8rR51DoAD4dSBvZSvBYl-JICVMMrWuvsYfXsG8fmFjzCCloM6OjlL9wweryC5tmm8c5lSx51EeVYXg/s1800/DG-1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1230" data-original-width="1800" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC9-tn31oKLIsPqUdtcfhuD6g6Dl-2mC6l5fILeY1sqyRX5j2gt8sR8va9nXLCobVJyp4boXqXKtmFbrkUoCgkgm2JBtFjLJAakgaYI_pp8rR51DoAD4dSBvZSvBYl-JICVMMrWuvsYfXsG8fmFjzCCloM6OjlL9wweryC5tmm8c5lSx51EeVYXg/s320/DG-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>“I didn’t buy a farm in order to brew,” she explains. “I built a brewery in order to farm.” But there’s a more complicated backstory to her mission, because she grew up here, on this farm, then left to become an investment banker. Her father, Jim Czub, and his brother Robert leased what eventually became over 2500 acres in the Moreau area, growing corn, soybeans, and hay. As land values increased in Saratoga County, they lost access to more and more of that land, eventually purchasing what has become the 308-acre brewery property in 2016.<span><a name='more'></a></span><br /><br />That’s when Rachel decided to quit the financial business. “I hate to be inside,” she says. “I like getting my hands dirty. I felt a general unhappiness with the world around me and a sense that I needed to do something else.” She’d grown up with farming, but her return to that world was informed by her banking experience. She moved from Houston to New York and thus was able to visit the farm more often, how seeing it in term of its economic structure. “The tractor, a grain bin – these were investments. I asked myself, ‘Where are the inefficiencies?’” A shift toward value-added crops would be beneficial. “But what would those crops be? The season is short.”<br /><br />Two factors came together. One was legislative: Spurred by the success of the 1976 Farm Winery Act, New York passed a law in 2012 requiring anyone with a Farm Brewery license to source at least 20 percent of the hops and the same percentage of other ingredients from New York; that percentage rose to 60 percent in 2019 and will top out at 90 percent in 2024. <br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIx6oyO7FwNUjCBLd9uvVbSa6aB1PA0TRidWZVTvKe5c8JbQsyRcQDS6oetT-Delp8bN6WvG5BIUpAgS1xXFb18Rr1SGZSptg2vazVbouH6maGfndzATHQ3jT4DKzRTbwjstWbQxMjwqBFbL0kCqebScZEcXk80AojrbwUPhXsR8VQl8pfBv2hiQ/s1800/DG-4.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1800" data-original-width="1300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIx6oyO7FwNUjCBLd9uvVbSa6aB1PA0TRidWZVTvKe5c8JbQsyRcQDS6oetT-Delp8bN6WvG5BIUpAgS1xXFb18Rr1SGZSptg2vazVbouH6maGfndzATHQ3jT4DKzRTbwjstWbQxMjwqBFbL0kCqebScZEcXk80AojrbwUPhXsR8VQl8pfBv2hiQ/s320/DG-4.jpg" width="231" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Rachel McDermott</i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>The other was agricultural. She set up her own small grains testing program, growing dozens of varieties over the course of five years, seeing what worked best on her land and in this micro-climate. She also was experimenting with what would be most sustainable, rotating crops, planting cover crops, and learning how to repurpose anything that promised further usefulness.<br /><br />McDermott soon set her sights on growing malting barley, which hasn’t been successfully cultivated on any appreciable scale in this state for decades. Malting barley is a beer ingredient that works in conjunction with hops, yeast, and water. Regular barley has a grain that is dead but still nutritional, but grains in malting barley must still be alive and germinable. This is what converts the barley starches into the sugar that will feed the yeast and ferment. <br /><br />The challenge of growing this type of barley in New York’s climate is keeping the grain from sprouting before harvest. Cornell’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences has been studying the challenge in its own test plots, and McDermott, a Cornell graduate, has carried that even further, planting several successive spring and winter grain plots and realizing failure after failure until she discovered what would work in her fields.<br /><br />Given the investment that’s already been made in equipment,” she says, “I thought that a shift toward value-added crops would be beneficial. There’s already been a family grain business here for many years, so I decided that a brewery would be logical expansion of that.”<br /><br />Alongside the grain experiments, McDermott and her husband moved a camper onto the property and took up residence with their dog, horses, and baby while renovations to the farmhouse were begun. “The farmhouse was vacant,” she says, “so it made sense to turn it back into a residence. Of course, we were doing this when the pandemic hit, so that complicated things.”<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBZMmt2WVOe4vVsexpcrfKArORiNAN7ivYIPIWG7xZDR6en-PWg5gZ4WbddaElxaTxy-naw4XZjGsMdaShi5gP_Uq5IPHGGQW0pnyss5Iq7XMD3OzFH32gq5lBHbtUJQyvmzxPuXpDJqi2ulZsUVl7qnLYzdbR7P59tlbSzQ5PCr6ghU1PUews2A/s1800/DG-2.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1273" data-original-width="1800" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBZMmt2WVOe4vVsexpcrfKArORiNAN7ivYIPIWG7xZDR6en-PWg5gZ4WbddaElxaTxy-naw4XZjGsMdaShi5gP_Uq5IPHGGQW0pnyss5Iq7XMD3OzFH32gq5lBHbtUJQyvmzxPuXpDJqi2ulZsUVl7qnLYzdbR7P59tlbSzQ5PCr6ghU1PUews2A/s320/DG-2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>As she settled back into farming, she took another look at her product. “After producing barley for five years or so, I saw that it’s a lower-yielding crop with a higher risk attached, so that growing and handling was not the best fit. So I pulled out of supplying grain to breweries and decided to make the beer right here instead. I figured that if I can make really good beer, I can also show other farmers how this product can be used.” <br /><br />A visitor discovers that the farm is a family-friendly place often boasting food and activity. You’ll find food trucks there often. There are large-screen TVs around when there’s a Bills game or other sports event to follow – and there were even tailgate parties over the summer for some of those Bills games. “We encourage people to bring friends, spend some time here, have a cook-out,” says McDermott. “We even had a chili cook-off yesterday.”<br /><br />You’ll find live music on Fridays and Saturdays, and the plan is to do even more events and festivals in the coming months. “We’ll be open Fridays and Saturdays in winter, but we’ll also do private events like Christmas parties and rehearsal dinners. It’s been very nice to get to know our customers, and some of them come every week.”<br /><br />There are a dozen different beers on tap at any given tap. Here’s what my (adult) daughter and I sampled on a recent visit.<br /><br />Sweet Bee, an American IPA, was a first choice because of the sunflower honey in its formula. It’s described as a honey-rye pale ale, “sweet and spicy with a tinge of bitterness to round out the caramel notes provided by over five gallons of sunflower fed honey.” We found it to be pleasantly hopsy, like an East Coast IPA; denser and sweeter than a West Coast IPA (this according to my IPA-enthusiast daughter), and a little lager-like in its finish.<br /><br />As a dark-beer fan, I was delighted with their porter that day, called Picture Perfect. We’re told to expect “expect aromas and flavors of toffee, chocolate, and lightly roasted coffee.” I found it to be not as dark chocolate-like as I expected from its color, but it was very drinkable and I long for a serving of fish and chips to pair it with.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWT04VwLq9PzrmzBOLZEXxZVfaMZr-CZlER15UM51A0DMNuh_iDsmE-mmj34KL62sFqeBUlCuHpFg0mgsSOTJiwuymL-LSIgKQVQmP4vg0Rv402zVTxRHUWP2xPtFqWHGf0ZbJ5cdR_IqoCgWQ2k4UmzNmUtjiL_KESvsU3JT8BO8Kb22TpZaVkg/s1800/DG-3.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1207" data-original-width="1800" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWT04VwLq9PzrmzBOLZEXxZVfaMZr-CZlER15UM51A0DMNuh_iDsmE-mmj34KL62sFqeBUlCuHpFg0mgsSOTJiwuymL-LSIgKQVQmP4vg0Rv402zVTxRHUWP2xPtFqWHGf0ZbJ5cdR_IqoCgWQ2k4UmzNmUtjiL_KESvsU3JT8BO8Kb22TpZaVkg/s320/DG-3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Lady Liberty is their very dark American stout, again with chocolate and coffee among the descriptors and with a smooth, easy-to-drink finish. I tasted both fruit and a very profound coffee finish. Take that, Guinness! <br /><br />The fields beyond the tasting area were aburst with sunflowers, so the pale ale called Spinning Jenny has an appropriate floral match. It’s fermented with Belgian yeast, very citrusy. An old-school pale ale that bites back in the best possible way.<br /><br />In the pursuit of keeping it local, 150 pounds of fresh peaches were turned into a puree to flavor the kettle sour called Kiss My Peach, and that flavor was very evident in the sour context. The beer is tart but offering just enough sweetness to keep the blend pleasant.<br /><br />We also sampled a Marzen lager called Stallbrenner, a good Oktoberfest beer, lighter in flavor than its color suggests, but with a toasted-bread flavor coming through and an almond-y finish.<br /><br />Right now there are no cans of Dancing Grain beer to take home. “We’re doing growlers now, for people who want to do pickups,” McDermott explains. “We’ll try an online sales model when we can find one that works for us. Right now the distribution industry is so saturated that we’re going to wait. Things need to be easy.”<br /><br />Although distilling is another route that has gained local traction, “Beer is an affordable luxury,” she says. “Distilling takes time. From an investment perspective, beer is an easier way to maintain cash-flow.” And she likes having it centered on her farm. “I love my dog, my horse, my family,” she explains. “I feel a tremendous sense of gratitude. But,” she adds, echoing every farmer everywhere, “there sure can be a lot of stress.”<br /><br />– 6 October 2023<br /><p></p><br />B. A. Nilssonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04932818130398280413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133180.post-28324566201069457332023-10-06T15:41:00.013-04:002024-02-24T14:30:31.746-05:00The Manchester Man<p><span style="color: #073763;">Guest Blogger Dept.: Before we travel to Manchester, I offer a vintage taste of the town. These are the opening pages of <i>The Manchester Man</i>, a novel published in 1876 by Isabella Banks. In the tradition of what was once termed lady novelists, it appeared in three volumes, issued using her married name, Mrs. G. Linnaeus Banks. And who can resist a writer who parts her name on the side? The story chronicles the life of the fictional Jabez Clegg, alongside whom we see many significant historical events, such as the Peterloo Massacre of 1819 and the disastrous launch of the cargo ship Emma, which capsized and cost some 47 passengers their lives. Although the book is not very well known today, you can celebrate it by visiting the pub named Jabez Clegg in central Manchester. We meet the infant Jabez when his cradle is carried along the flooding river Irk in 1799.</span><br /><br /><strike> </strike> <br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivNvng4J3u7KM5iZmfX067MoCa7FazSlBC4JR-PMhPBjpK3WhJLM5pHXKxOx-3I_JaBSwIhldxbH9tHH7y947uuEuZIuDA4a8XMKFcmOU-D6rdhg1PuJMi1rw4nhBbMG1eHBoPzV9EKs_9hyYcGu9Bz9kwlqcHiCYZoLG8imwJa3tmRf0zvwuv7w/s650/Manchester%20Man-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="650" height="295" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivNvng4J3u7KM5iZmfX067MoCa7FazSlBC4JR-PMhPBjpK3WhJLM5pHXKxOx-3I_JaBSwIhldxbH9tHH7y947uuEuZIuDA4a8XMKFcmOU-D6rdhg1PuJMi1rw4nhBbMG1eHBoPzV9EKs_9hyYcGu9Bz9kwlqcHiCYZoLG8imwJa3tmRf0zvwuv7w/s320/Manchester%20Man-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Old Market Street</i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>WHEN Pliny lost his life, and Herculaneum was buried, Manchester was born. Whilst lava and ashes blotted from sight and memory fair and luxurious Roman cities close to the Capitol, the Roman soldiery of Titus, under their general Agricola, laid the foundations of a distant city which now competes with the great cities of the world. Where now rise forests of tall chimneys, and the hum of whirling spindles, spread the dense woods of Arden; and from the clearing in their midst rose the Roman castrum of Mamutium, which has left its name of Castle Field as a memorial to us. </p><p></p>But where their summer camp is said to have been pitched, on the airy rock at the confluence of the rivers Irk and Irwell, sacred church and peaceful college have stood for centuries, and only antiquaries can point to Roman possession, or even to the baronial hall which the Saxon lord perched there for security.<span><a name='more'></a></span><br /><br />And only an antiquary or a very old inhabitant can recall Manchester as it was at the close of the last century, and shutting his eyes upon railway-arch, station, and esplanade, upon Palatine buildings, broad roadways, and river embankments, can see the Irk and the Irwell as they were when the Cathedral was the Collegiate Church, with a diminutive brick wall round its ancient graveyard. Then the irregular-fronted rows of quaint old houses which still, under the name of Half Street, crowd upon two sides of the churchyard, with only an intervening strip of a flagged walk between, closed it up on a third side, and shut the river (lying low beneath) from the view, with a huddled mass of still older dwellings, some of which were thrust out of sight, and were only to be reached by flights of break-neck steps of rock or stone, and like their hoary fellows creeping down the narrow roadway of Hunt’s Bank, overhung the Irwell, and threatened to topple into it some day.<br /><br />The Chetham Hospital or College still looks solidly down on the Irk at the angle of the streams; the old Grammar School has been suffered to do the same; and—thanks to the honest workmen who built for our ancestors—the long lines of houses known as Long Millgate are for the most part standing, and on the river side have resisted the frequent floods of centuries.<br /><br />In 1799 that line was almost unbroken, from the College (where it commenced at Hunt’s Bank Bridge) to Red Bank. The little alley by the Town Mill, called Mill-brow, which led down to the wooden Mill Bridge, was little more of a gap than those narrow entries or passages which pierced the walls like slits here and there, and offered dark and perilous passage to courts and alleys, trending in steep incline to the very bed of the Irk. The houses themselves had been good originally, and were thus cramped together for defence in perilous times, when experience taught that a narrow gorge was easier held against warlike odds than an open roadway.<br /><br />Ducie Bridge had then no existence, but Tanners’ Bridge—no doubt a strong wooden structure like that at Mill-brow—accessible from the street only by one of those narrow steep passages, stood within a few yards of its site, and had a place on old maps so far back as 1650. Its name is expressive, and goes to prove that the tannery on the steep banks of the Irk, behind the houses of Long Millgate opposite to the end of Miller’s Lane, was a tannery at least a century and a half before old Simon Clegg worked amongst the tan-pits, and called William Clough master.<br /><br />To this sinuous and picturesque line of houses, the streams with their rocky and precipitous banks will have served in olden times as a natural defensive moat (indeed it is noticeable that old Manchester kept pretty much within the angle of its rivers), and in 1799, from one end of Millgate to the other, the dwellers by the waterside looked across the stream on green and undulating uplands, intersected by luxuriant hedgerows, a bleachery at Walker’s Croft, and a short terrace of houses near Scotland Bridge, denominated Scotland, being the sole breaks in the verdure.<br /><br />Between the tannery and Scotland Bridge, the river makes a sharp bend; and here, at the elbow, another mill, with its corresponding dam, was situated. The current of the Irk, if not deep, is strong at all times, though kept by its high banks within narrow compass. But when, as is not unseldom the case, there is a sudden flushing of water from the hill-country, it rises, rises, rises, stealthily, though swiftly, till the stream overtops its banks, washes over low-lying bleach-crofts, fields, and gardens, mounts foot by foot over the fertile slopes, invades the houses, and, like a mountain-robber sweeping from his fastness on a peaceful vale, carries his spoil with him, and leaves desolation and wailing behind.<br /><br />Such a flood as this, following a heavy thunder-storm, devastated the valley of the Irk, on the 17th of August, 1799.<br /><br />Well was it then for the tannery and those houses on the bank of the Irk which had their foundations in the solid rock, for the waters surged and roared at their base and over pleasant meadows—a wide-spread turbulent sea, with here and there an island of refuge, which the day before had been a lofty mound.<br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjoyCldJI8ODpyrmsaG4hz5_XMhth76BIDn5_5tr8-uGHtkhqMRMCGR5vAw4KLVfl2bKTIbO2xwxclPrUmfbqZWjexRFOrDTELQA2vkCH_Pcm0bRBHGJzkTRaJby7_LSesf3sbeikJtwdPqI_pF1K0Ufnqgb371IW4cWfPZa-EbeaG83hn67n_Nw/s883/Manchester%20Man-2%20Isabella%20Banks.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="883" data-original-width="700" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjoyCldJI8ODpyrmsaG4hz5_XMhth76BIDn5_5tr8-uGHtkhqMRMCGR5vAw4KLVfl2bKTIbO2xwxclPrUmfbqZWjexRFOrDTELQA2vkCH_Pcm0bRBHGJzkTRaJby7_LSesf3sbeikJtwdPqI_pF1K0Ufnqgb371IW4cWfPZa-EbeaG83hn67n_Nw/s320/Manchester%20Man-2%20Isabella%20Banks.jpg" width="254" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Isabella Banks</i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>The flood of the previous Autumn, when a coach and horses had been swept down the Irwell, and men and women were drowned, was as nothing to this. The tannery yard, high as it was above the bed of the Irk, and solid as was its embankment, was threatened with invasion. The surging water roared and beat against its masonry, and licked its coping with frothy tongue and lip, like a hungry giant, greedy for fresh food. Men with thick clogs and hide-bound legs, leathern gloves and aprons, were hurrying to and fro with barrows and bark-boxes for the reception of the valuable hides which their mates, armed with long-shafted hooks and tongs, were dragging from the pits pell-mell, ere the advancing waters should encroach upon their territory, and empty the tan-pits for them.<br /><br />Already the insatiate flood bore testimony to its ruthless greed. Hanks of yarn, pieces of calico, hay, uptorn bushes, planks, chairs, boxes, dog-kennels, and hen-coops, a shattered chest of drawers, pots and pans, had swept past, swirling and eddying in the flood, which by this time spread like a vast lake over the opposite lands, and had risen within three feet of the arch of Scotland Bridge, and hardly left a trace where the mill-dam chafed it commonly.<br /><br />Too busy were the tanners, under the eye of their master, to stretch out hand or hook to arrest the progress of either furniture or live stock, though beehives and hen-coops, and more than one squealing pig, went racing with the current, now rising towards the footway of Tanner’s Bridge.<br /><br />Every window of every house upon the banks was crowded with anxious heads, for flooded Scotland rose like an island from the watery waste, and their own cellars were fast filling. There had been voices calling to each other from window to window all the morning; but now from window to window, from house to house, rang one reduplicated shriek, which caused many of the busy tanners to quit their work, and rush to the water’s edge. To their horror, a painted wooden cradle, which had crossed the deeply-submerged dam in safety, was floating foot-foremost down to destruction, with an infant calmly sleeping in its bed; the very motion of the waters having seemingly lulled it to sounder repose!<br /><br />“Good Lord! It’s a choilt!” exclaimed Simon Clegg, the eldest tanner in the yard. “Lend a hand here, fur the sake o’ th’ childer at whoam.”<br /><br />Half a dozen hooks and plungers were outstretched, even while he spoke; but the longest was lamentably too short to arrest the approaching cradle in its course, and the unconscious babe seemed doomed. With frantic haste Simon Clegg rushed on to Tanner’s Bridge, followed by a boy; and there, with hook and plunger, they met the cradle as it drifted towards them, afraid of over-balancing it even in their attempt to save. It swerved, and almost upset; but Simon dexterously caught his hook within the wooden hood, and drew the frail bark and its living freight close to the bridge. The boy, and a man named Cooper, lying flat on the bridge, then clutched at it with extended hands, raised it carefully from the turbid water, and drew it safely between the open rails to the footway, amidst the shouts and hurrahs of breathless and excited spectators.<br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl88AhZgM2LH6oJClQTv4HK9ozLLDDV26zvUbojCkvkJLPP7iNyRWgzgCa9f6lCP2aSMjIyqPuIpeED72pdDnX_H3-4BpkKdwjv0oZhkkQuiIkjWtu6pgn-63UYViKQH2W-Hkon5HTkmaUPcyXjIVgZRt9oXgWzGsty2YRG2oKKx7KT6X9gCRSZw/s557/Manchester%20Man-3.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="359" data-original-width="557" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl88AhZgM2LH6oJClQTv4HK9ozLLDDV26zvUbojCkvkJLPP7iNyRWgzgCa9f6lCP2aSMjIyqPuIpeED72pdDnX_H3-4BpkKdwjv0oZhkkQuiIkjWtu6pgn-63UYViKQH2W-Hkon5HTkmaUPcyXjIVgZRt9oXgWzGsty2YRG2oKKx7KT6X9gCRSZw/s320/Manchester%20Man-3.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Clean-up after the River Irk flood of 1927</i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>The babe was screaming terribly. The shock when the first hook stopped the progress of the cradle had disturbed its dreams, and its little fat arms were stretched out piteously as strange faces looked down upon it instead of the mother’s familiar countenance. Wrapping the patchwork quilt around it to keep it from contact with his wet sleeves and apron, Simon tenderly as a woman, lifted the infant in his rough arms, and strove to comfort it, but in vain. His beard of three days growth was as a rasp to its soft skin, and the closer he caressed, the more it screamed. The men from the tannery came crowding round him.<br /><br />“What dost ta mean to do wi’ th’ babby?” asked the man Cooper of old Simon. “Aw’d tak’ it whoam to my missis, but th’ owd lass is nowt to be takken to, an’ wur cross as two sticks when oi only axed fur mi baggin to bring to wark wi’ mi this mornin’,” added he, with rueful remembrance of the scolding wife on his hearth.<br /><br />“Neay, lad, aw’ll not trust th’ poor choilt to thy Sally. It ’ud be loike chuckin’ it out o’ th’ wayter into th’ fire (Hush-a-by, babby). Aw’ll just take it to ar’ Bess, and hoo’ll cuddle it up, and gi’ it summat to sup, till we find its own mammy,” answered Simon, leaving the bridge. “Bring the kayther3 alung, Jack,” (to the boy) “Bess’ll want it. We’n noan o’ that tackle at ar place. Hush-a-by, hush-a-by, babby.”<br /><br />But the little thing, missing its natural protector, and half stifled in the swathing quilt, only screamed the louder; and Simon, notwithstanding his kind heart, was truly glad when his daughter Bess, who had witnessed the rescue from their own window, met him at the tannery gate, and relieved him of his struggling charge.<br /><br />“Si thi, Bess! here’s a God-send fur thi—a poor little babby fur thi to tend an’ be koind to, till them it belungs to come a-seekin’ fur it,” said he to the young woman; “but thah mun give it summat better than cowd wayter—it’s had too mich o’ that a’ready.”<br /><br />“That aw will, poor darlin’!” responded she, kissing the babe’s velvet cheeks as, sensible of a change of nurses, it nestled to her breast. “Eh! but there’ll be sore hearts for this blessed babby, somewheere.” And she turned up the narrow passage which led at once from the tan-yard and the bridge, stilling and soothing the little castaway as adroitly as an experienced nurse.<br /><br />“Neaw, luk thi, lad,” Simon remarked to Cooper; “is na it fair wonderful heaw that babby taks to ar Bess? But it’s just a way hoo has, an’ theere is na a fractious choilt i’ a’ ar yard but’ll be quiet wi’ Bess.”<br /><br />Cooper looked after her, nodded an assent, and sighed, as if he wished some one in another yard had the same soothing way with her.<br /><br />– Isabella Banks, from <i>The Manchester Man</i>, Abel Heywood & Son, 56 & 58, Oldham Street, Manchester, pp. 1-5.<p></p>B. A. Nilssonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04932818130398280413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133180.post-91369073481540770052023-09-29T20:44:00.002-04:002024-02-23T15:49:57.568-05:00Afternoon Tea, Part Two<p>HISTORY INSISTS that the Duchess of Bedford, on a visit to the Duke of Rutland in 1840, grew uncomfortable peckish as she awaited supper. It wouldn’t be served until at least 8 PM. She asked for a snack. It consisted of tea and some feathery sandwiches. Friends joined her, both for the refreshment and a chance to catch up on the news. <br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGmL83npCi5WStz7Gd6Tsca7UAGsTn0CrKnR64YrxZRtNvDo4NkgXgNvSjDCKdXqRp62ez_AGfF2opRQmjY0IV-txpgZiafzSbGhuH_Pt14IOeWxqse3rWOKzYTwmHreg18GJRtwAINsTaxOoEeKaP6HwokZrfWokzabOz13EF_lp55hMMOIc8tg/s1800/Tea-1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1800" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGmL83npCi5WStz7Gd6Tsca7UAGsTn0CrKnR64YrxZRtNvDo4NkgXgNvSjDCKdXqRp62ez_AGfF2opRQmjY0IV-txpgZiafzSbGhuH_Pt14IOeWxqse3rWOKzYTwmHreg18GJRtwAINsTaxOoEeKaP6HwokZrfWokzabOz13EF_lp55hMMOIc8tg/s320/Tea-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Thus was born afternoon tea, or “low tea,” as it’s sometimes termed, owing to the low tables (now, inappropriately, called “coffee tables”) on which it was served. Which also distinguishes it from “high tea,” which is a meal unto itself, a tradition born during the Industrial Revolution, when workers returned home ravenous. High tea is dinner; low tea is scones and cucumber sandwiches.<br /><br />The latter is the ritual practiced each afternoon at 3:30 on board the Queen Mary when the ship isn’t easing in or out of port. A large ballroom, the Queen’s Room, is the main service area, but such can be the overflow that the Britannia Restaurant may be pressed into service. <span><a name='more'></a></span><br /><br />Cunard presents this as an elegant ritual capturing the refined nature of Victorian-era ease. White-gloved servers circulate to refill your cup from polished silver service when they’re not tempting you with trays of sandwiches and scones and other sweets. <br /><br />A wonderful idea, in theory. If you want to indulge, you have three choices: line up early outside the Queen’s Room; push in after the start of the event and hope for the best; get your goodies and tea from the seventh-deck buffet. Because it can be a scene of madness.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiUB5u_5D1ozTmWKqFrV9TAGidqIJwuhR-RHXEBgTFgCnqqxEPtzMc1Gcup4FLY9IIB4qHN0LGjtAmBwRfcKPtbziix9M3T-oeLHixFXNchPS2hURG0N-xt7kub3wLoXARQtP58KqQs186kgPjqbBxtxYebbuJDRE_iJGX5X0f1hfYi-dKfaQbgw/s1800/Tea-2.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1239" data-original-width="1800" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiUB5u_5D1ozTmWKqFrV9TAGidqIJwuhR-RHXEBgTFgCnqqxEPtzMc1Gcup4FLY9IIB4qHN0LGjtAmBwRfcKPtbziix9M3T-oeLHixFXNchPS2hURG0N-xt7kub3wLoXARQtP58KqQs186kgPjqbBxtxYebbuJDRE_iJGX5X0f1hfYi-dKfaQbgw/s320/Tea-2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>After all, it’s free food for everyone and a sizeable number of passengers are American. This means they take way too much even as they take up way too much space. Or I should say “we,” because I’m one of the worst offenders.<br /><br />Susan and I went in search of afternoon tea our first full day of sailing, already late to the party when we set off. There’s a server hierarchy on board the ship, so the busy waiter who greeted us indicated the lack of table space even as he turned us over to a captain (service, not ship’s), who guided us on over to the Britannia, an odd half-flight up from where we were. There we were seated at the remaining two seats at an eight-top, which meant that there were six people waiting to bore us with their appalling lack of conversational topics. <br /><br />In this, of course, my wife eagerly joins. That is, she enjoys learning where these folks (they were all Americans) are from and how Uncle Marvin insisted they should sail and good thing there’s this tea cuz there was barely anything to eat at dinner last night and sure hope there are some good shows to see and ...<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxafeKkxp8qwzlUFRjwt9XXewN6vbXXNzBkMVmlNR0QQ7MqM-6yH5qDgBUyEkL5yj9Zl_lSlQF_0UPAV3WUxqzmqsV6lpu-Xewf5M84cpc1IoEfGt3m50-dA-b4XDB5J5g0Pumbwols5dwXxUNufNBgHeCUihevT479-r_oNDlTo8EAmBa5HtPlA/s1800/Tea-4.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1148" data-original-width="1800" height="204" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxafeKkxp8qwzlUFRjwt9XXewN6vbXXNzBkMVmlNR0QQ7MqM-6yH5qDgBUyEkL5yj9Zl_lSlQF_0UPAV3WUxqzmqsV6lpu-Xewf5M84cpc1IoEfGt3m50-dA-b4XDB5J5g0Pumbwols5dwXxUNufNBgHeCUihevT479-r_oNDlTo8EAmBa5HtPlA/s320/Tea-4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Which hardly does credit to the amount of complaining we heard. There’s a peculiar bonding ritual conducted over complaints when you’ve been raised in the cult of victimhood, a cult that includes anyone you’ve stood behind in a supermarket line. I figured I’d be excused from conversation if my mouth were full, but quickly realized that was stopping nobody else at the table.<br /><br />As soon as we were seated a server stopped by with tea. Someone at the table asked if there’d be sandwiches. “Coming, coming,” murmured the server. This, I learned, would be a constant refrain. Those treats-laden trays couldn’t arrive fast enough. Crustless finger sandwiches arrived and vanished; scones and clotted cream did likewise. Little cake-slices. More sandwiches. More scones, dropped into the insatiable maw of this table. Likewise at the tables around us. The Duchess of Bedford’s dignified soirée had degenerated into a free-for-all, helped by the fact that it was free.<br /><br />Or at least a no-extra-charge part of an ocean voyage that proffers food, via dining room, buffet, or room service, at all hours. You need only push the feeder bar with your paw and a cascade of tasty morsels fills your bowl. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUnSrUyUt3uVsdfcXMtc3nK6DtppdIlQjop8W5N_qvqAy_3l8gRdcPKSQ4dHVHyIta_pmInbxbk-0ZpBGtuxsiPKmRBJYq3AKAqD15hBJwtB4AXBHkoTYuQi7VWukjclIJp_ghLNpkK2xSi9OdRn71dpwtwS50wydStw4UJK3gyc-SuOa4vVG-9A/s1800/Tea-3.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1800" data-original-width="1166" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUnSrUyUt3uVsdfcXMtc3nK6DtppdIlQjop8W5N_qvqAy_3l8gRdcPKSQ4dHVHyIta_pmInbxbk-0ZpBGtuxsiPKmRBJYq3AKAqD15hBJwtB4AXBHkoTYuQi7VWukjclIJp_ghLNpkK2xSi9OdRn71dpwtwS50wydStw4UJK3gyc-SuOa4vVG-9A/s320/Tea-3.jpg" width="207" /></a></div>But let me praise the dignity of those busy servers. Each arrives with teapot or salver containing enough to satisfy a table or two but no more, circling back to a pantry station even as those thus denied holler in abject hunger. Amazing how easy it is to act like you’re starving even as your downing that third or fourth scone!<br /><br />We avoided afternoon tea the following day, but the day after that I felt the pull. The pangs. The reckless appeal of those pastries. We visited the buffet area, where you help yourself. Where everyone there is so occupied, crowding the displays of sandwiches and sweets. Where you intrude your tongs at your peril, lest you should be perceived as cutting in line. Not that anyone is hissing, “I was here first.” You’re more likely simply be elbowed out of the way, pushed back to where the timid await their elusive turns.<br /><br />Back to the Queen’s Room for our next shot at afternoon tea, this time taking a place in line well before the starting bell. Lucking into a rare table for two, right under the lifesize portrait of her recently deceased majesty. Then, at last, with that endlessly supply of bad-for-me food and no-one to chat with but my wife, I was truly able to enjoy my misanthropic self.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhaiEcLsTLDd6vgcsIWZEhn85oo7STAis3IUYCEss_P_Wdgz4crUGB2t648IThFgjgcfCtBSUOane6ofAGoHC4MHvQQxy3WeVpKZ5R5D9C-2AQJbRQGYW2_WUPThnzZtKi37LEJboG5Aupqj5jDxvg2rwWgADCRglX-1lAXv3PgZtvkwo57DVwVg/s1800/Tea-3.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a></div><p></p>B. A. Nilssonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04932818130398280413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133180.post-10466206252522972862023-09-22T22:23:00.008-04:002024-02-22T12:27:25.253-05:00Afternoon Tea, Part One<p><span style="color: #660000;"><i>From the Vault Dept</i>.: Inspired by my voluble chronicle of my recent travels, here’s a throwback piece. It’s chronicles a delightful stop on a trip to London my wife and I took 36 years ago. The prices mentioned below are, of course, now only a nostalgic dream.</span><br /><strike><br /> </strike> <br /><br />THAT ELUSIVE FOURTH MEAL OF THE DAY, afternoon tea! What is its appeal and how should it be practiced? For an answer, my wife and I traveled to London with a vision of all traffic stopping and all shops closing down at 4 PM to enable visitors and residents to indulge in this custom.<br /><br />It's not that dramatic. In fact, we came upon our high tea quite by accident, while visiting the place that's as much of a tourist attraction as it is a department store: Harrods, in the wealthy suburb of Knightsbridge.<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQxZyqSNzlvRxDsJPPb8R1cRqhr5w-IUgWqCQobjrl-R4ZIG-cAlZIlj8HQUQszCUcpAaEt1cg2kCr4LwE2TEJjJ6eeGcaCBYY0-wqlBeK8W492Z1a-fjtxKe-19wROeNsS1byVNKdRpy1ywBqlna_diomSo0Tm-dfcMMhMNgTTmJP91Y8zBw1YA/s1800/Harrods.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1800" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQxZyqSNzlvRxDsJPPb8R1cRqhr5w-IUgWqCQobjrl-R4ZIG-cAlZIlj8HQUQszCUcpAaEt1cg2kCr4LwE2TEJjJ6eeGcaCBYY0-wqlBeK8W492Z1a-fjtxKe-19wROeNsS1byVNKdRpy1ywBqlna_diomSo0Tm-dfcMMhMNgTTmJP91Y8zBw1YA/s320/Harrods.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p>A Rolls-Royce was parked outside. Behind it sat a Mercedes-Benz 560SL. Several other no doubt pedigreed, hyphenated cars followed. The doorman sported more buttons than an elevator in a high-rise.<br /><br />Inside was a mixture of British restraint and American let's-sell-'em fervor (the sale was to begin in a week: “There's only one Harrods. There's only one sale”' is the tagline). <br /><br />This is the Crossgates Mall of central London, assuming you stripped Crossgates of its more useless stores and jacked the prices at the rest. Admittedly, that eliminates over half the mall, but you get the idea. Lots of stuff, full retail price.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a>Lots of unusual stuff, too. You can buy a funeral service. There's also, and perhaps this is the wrong paragraph to mention it, a meat market.<p></p><p>And four restaurants on the upper two floors. It was about 3 o'clock when we made this discovery, along with learning that tea was about to served. We made our way through a labyrinth of floors and departments to the very top of the store, where the Georgian Room was a-bustle with the High Tea Crowd.<br /><br />We missed the luncheon (or, if you're British, dinner) buffet, where £12 (about $19) buys you a plate to fill from the sprawling board of cold meats and salads – or, at the carvery section, hot roasts and Yorkshire pudding, the best reason I know for cooking roast beef.<br /><br />Afternoon tea was a mere £5.50 ($8.80) – unless you want to sit on the porch with a view of London, and that's 50P extra.<br /><br />Will it shock you to learn that those of our fellow-diners we could overhear were American? Probably the same throng that congregated a few blocks east to witness the changing of the guard that morning, a dead boring affair that only an American tourist would have the perseverance (and muscle power) to endure.<br /><br />In any event, we were shown to a pink-clothed table in the midst of a huge room with skylights and an ornate ceiling, bounded by large panes of decoratively-frosted glass.<br /><br />Yes, we said to the waiter's query, and he brought us a tray of three pots: tea, hot water, and milk. You thin the tea to your taste, you see, but remember, the milk gets poured first. [Note to younger self: That’s not absolutely true. Some insist that it the custom was born due to the erroneous fear that delicate teacups would crack from the hot liquid, although there’s an argument that milk-first prevents the milk itself from suffering from denatured proteins. And nobody wants that!]<br /><br />Then we were turned loose upon the tables of sweets. They were breathtaking. Susan pounced on a pile of buttered scones (pronounced with a short O if you're British) before noticing the cream-filled confections, several of which she managed to cram onto the provided tiny plate.<br /><br />The English don't use whipped cream as we know it. If you ask for cream for, say, your trifle, it's a thick but runny topping. In the confections we ate at Harrods, it was whipped just short of butter, flavored with a variety of essence.<br /><br />Buffet tables were tumbling over with pastries, each a delectable morsel, each a hand-made item. There was fresh fruit as well, presented with breathtaking loveliness, although the two or, to be honest, three trips we took to the table were confined to a sampling of the breads and pastries.<br /><br />Oh, yes. Bread. Freshly-baked, and a slice of sweet butter to make it a heavenly trip to the dinner hole.<br /><br />We were surprised to notice how trim most of the Londoners were. When a fat body like mine emerged from a crowd it usually carried the vocal whine of a tourist from New Jersey. Perhaps there’s a deliberate avoidance of this sweet-laden afternoon tea that keeps the British in shape. <br /><b><br />The Georgian at Harrods</b>, The Brompton Road, Knightsbridge, London SW1X 7XL, 020 7225 6800. Serving lunch and afternoon tea Mon-Sat noon-8, Sun noon-6. All major credit cards.<br /><br />– <i>Metroland </i>Magazine, 23 July 1987</p><p></p>B. A. Nilssonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04932818130398280413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133180.post-16385465022435779582023-09-15T21:41:00.010-04:002024-02-21T16:49:28.517-05:00Next Stop: The Cotswolds<p>THIS IS WHERE I GOT stuck in the bathtub. My wife and I share plenty of wonderful memories of our three days in England’s Cotswolds region, but there was something almost surreal about the bathtub incident that causes it to hijack at least my own memory.<br /><br />We took the three-and-a-half hour drive from Seaford to Moreton-in-Marsh in an extremely comfortable Peugeot SUV, chatting with Haroon, our driver, all along the way. That may seem like too much, but it was a fascinating conversation as we learned about his years in his native Pakistan – which at one point involved a shootout where he got in the way and lingered near death for a while – and his now-happier life living in Birmingham with a wife and kids. You can understand that the ride never grew boring.<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKyfjXf9WzjH1eU3fjfN2ZYSQO-tyugTLvor9RCZjDS0qnnMhITXopPusc38_pLX1XdSIte8ffaTXJ4xWuiQWsHfZMiapkcX3tIVI0OO0fXKK4b7N5eVTLw_j4PFuFw1Fd8fEu7FULKR0x8SblMuvk7mdwYNyuK7M36veaEKRbVQhwg07r7BxMOg/s1800/Moreton-5.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1800" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKyfjXf9WzjH1eU3fjfN2ZYSQO-tyugTLvor9RCZjDS0qnnMhITXopPusc38_pLX1XdSIte8ffaTXJ4xWuiQWsHfZMiapkcX3tIVI0OO0fXKK4b7N5eVTLw_j4PFuFw1Fd8fEu7FULKR0x8SblMuvk7mdwYNyuK7M36veaEKRbVQhwg07r7BxMOg/s320/Moreton-5.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>The uniformity of appearance from building to antique-looking building in the town is due to Cotswold stone, a type of Midlands-mined limestone that dates from the Jurassic Period. It’s prized for its oolite appearance, taken from the Proto-Hellenic word for egg, “ōyyón,” referring to the egglike bumps on the stone’s surface. And if the stone looks familiar, it’s because it also gives its distinctive appearance to Blenheim Palace and St. Paul’s Cathedral.<br /><br />Our immediate destination, the Manor House Hotel, on M-i-M’s High Street, showed the charming combination of Cotswold stone on the outside and imaginative design within. The airy ground floor offered areas in which to relax, to work, to quaff; our third-floor (or, in England, second-floor) room waited at the end of a slanted-ceiling corridor along which I carefully ducked. And it couldn’t have been more charming and nicely appointed. And just look at that capacious bathtub!<span><a name='more'></a></span><br /><br />Ah, but we needed to explore. Susan explored the village itself, laid out along some four or five walkable blocks. She offered to push me in my underused transport chair, but I chose instead to explore the adjoining bar for a pint of Cotswold Best and a welcome dish of olives. Welcome mostly because it was too early in the day for the main menu to kick in, so only a few cold appetizers were offered.<br /><br />We dined that evening at the Swan Inn, in another vintage structure of Cotswold Stone, this one styling itself as a family-friendly sports pub. Susan enjoyed a vegetarian lasagne, which seemed to me to defeat the purpose of the dish, while I had a good-sized portion of pork chops and mashed. We’d been assigned to watch a BBC documentary titled “A Year on Helvellyn,” to prepare us for our upcoming jaunt to the Manchester area. I’m no fan of that kind of program, which I find over-edited, over-narrated, and generally overwrought, so I excused myself to take advantage of that bathtub.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht-wzW4yoCTTpShyphenhyphencLZ0WBYZbnwA_-V9fexD0PnCddBY5Mvr1GInclOZbLGpSWjWGA626Wapxh6GbhlK0rjCHqG4h2_7uQV4fhuYxIJ8f4Qaq2XJvtzLcnzo3RRKVSH3nFajTuqn-Xi4IpFSsBNftJQ3RIDUigTpGrKycmLmn0IZom9NyZ2XK9rA/s1800/Moreton-4.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1108" data-original-width="1800" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht-wzW4yoCTTpShyphenhyphencLZ0WBYZbnwA_-V9fexD0PnCddBY5Mvr1GInclOZbLGpSWjWGA626Wapxh6GbhlK0rjCHqG4h2_7uQV4fhuYxIJ8f4Qaq2XJvtzLcnzo3RRKVSH3nFajTuqn-Xi4IpFSsBNftJQ3RIDUigTpGrKycmLmn0IZom9NyZ2XK9rA/s320/Moreton-4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>And it was enjoyable, soaking my tired legs in water that came out hotter than the taps in my house ever emit. The challenge I faced, as I set the tub to emptying, was in getting my outsized body upright. To do so I would need to kneel (and on chronically sore knees, I might add). In order to kneel, I’d need to rotate. In order to rotate, I’d need some form of levering-aid that the high sides of the tub didn’t offer. I tried pushing up from those side-rims, but, since I was pushing from each side of my fat waist, that was an impossible dead lift. <br /><br />Each new effort proved exhausting. I sprawled in the tub between said efforts, suddenly sympathetic to Gregor Samsa’s plight. If I could only turn onto my side . . . <br /><br />Susan couldn’t more turn me. I was a 300-pound boulder, only slippery. I imagined the call to the desk for help, a maintenance crew arriving to suffer this assault on the eyes. The call for more help. Local firefighters hurrying to our room. The hands, the arms plunging into the tub around and beneath me. The ridicule that would circulate ever after. <br /><br />I have performed enough home-renovation tasks to know that I could expect no reliable leverage from bathtub fixtures. I’ve installed them. There’s not much keeping them in place. Same for any towel racks and shelving. Susan considered my plight, and, to her credit, did so without laughing. But her entry into the bathroom presented a possibility of liberation. The door opened inward. Doors are sturdy, and the heavy doorknobs were within reach. I grasped them both, one in each hand, and was able to winch myself to my knees and from there climb free. Thus ended my last-ever soak in a bathtub. <br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"> *<br /></p><p>Breakfast at the hotel is served in a sunny atrium, fueling us for the busy market day ahead. What has long made this village a popular destination is the convenient rail line, directly linked to London, which has helped maintain Moreton-in-Marsh’s identity as a market town. Tuesdays are traditional market days here, with some 200 vendor stalls lining Fosse Street. And this is a tradition that goes back to the 13th century, long predating the arrival of the railway in 1853.<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCVODE8V33-1FlwvXO6S0MABJmYwTHBUhE6MQdy3hRQJJBoLVVuTFxqFgo0F4kbyM-2PQ3f4voeMzX5gtuE9NVBBy5-WBFfCrzHdwt1Xsl0naheGxQ8xeSQqcxH0F_tmzByK0bGw8ep79sCVgmOqGZKyLy6O8VWLW1HLfG9i-499q8d2zviy_5Vw/s1800/Moreton-1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1800" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCVODE8V33-1FlwvXO6S0MABJmYwTHBUhE6MQdy3hRQJJBoLVVuTFxqFgo0F4kbyM-2PQ3f4voeMzX5gtuE9NVBBy5-WBFfCrzHdwt1Xsl0naheGxQ8xeSQqcxH0F_tmzByK0bGw8ep79sCVgmOqGZKyLy6O8VWLW1HLfG9i-499q8d2zviy_5Vw/s320/Moreton-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Those stalls lined a pair of parallel street-stretches, with food and gadgets and clothing and more on display. Susan decided she needed a dress, so we dipped into a maze of women’s clothing. The proprietor of that stall literally sized her up, recommending this dress and that, turning her reactions into more recommendations. He knew when to interact; he knew when to leave her alone. She walked away delighted with both a dress and an attractive sweater.<br /><br />Our main event was a visit to Hidcote Manor, a National Trust property featuring a ten-acre garden designed by Major Lawrence Johnston, a transplanted American who fought in the Boer War before settling into his mother’s Gloucestershire mansion. I was a bit confused at first, thinking we’d be visiting the property once owned by the actor John Wood, who appeared with Peter Sellers in “Two-Way Stretch” and Spike Milligan in “Postman’s Knock” and “Invasion Quartet.” His was Hidcote House, however; the Manor is its own estate.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiER9xK1gQoo4kJpL8CoqfhYXLIVVjK9NuJ-4Uq0m1uByrzUkf1zddmbqWmfLP4WAFkUPQOooisQyVF1mvRbRTZ8H8unFPnhOef54Y5Lud_kEeAEqRf4PGZxgpoqL7TyT27W8FlBGZnNi_SD4rYpRMIG4kE6HmVeMkqNE72C1juYlbKw8xTzbn8XQ/s1800/Moreton-2.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1800" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiER9xK1gQoo4kJpL8CoqfhYXLIVVjK9NuJ-4Uq0m1uByrzUkf1zddmbqWmfLP4WAFkUPQOooisQyVF1mvRbRTZ8H8unFPnhOef54Y5Lud_kEeAEqRf4PGZxgpoqL7TyT27W8FlBGZnNi_SD4rYpRMIG4kE6HmVeMkqNE72C1juYlbKw8xTzbn8XQ/s320/Moreton-2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>We booked a local taxi service to get there, thus meeting a delightful driver named Kim, herself a transplant from South Africa, but now as knowledgeable as a native about local lore and places. A boon for me was getting my very own taxi, of sorts: one of the mobility scooters they save for dodderers like me. This allowed me to cover much of the grounds, following a map that’s provided, and to avoid listening to Susan exult over this or that obscure piece of flora. <br /><br />Chauffeur Kim went off on an airport run while we toured the estate, but was back in time to fetch us back to our hotel. This time she offered a more leisurely route, taking us through Chipping Campden and Blockley and Bourton-on-the-Hill, each a picturesque gem. <br /><br />The nearby Inn on the Marsh has been a pub since 1870, and is now connected with Marston’s, a mega-brewery that owns over a thousand pubs across England and Wales. There was nothing of the chain-restaurant feel to the place: it was homey, with a music theme to its decor. That Susan and I both ordered fish and chips was a tribute to the comfort of the place. We were sitting among locals, yet felt not at all the exceptions. And the food and beer were delicious. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_ky8SRgtLYMJRxFdZcnuO9j_6yr60lccTv0DIeROt3jcxYcg3xDLcgQN7P1_yZovMIXXuMsvpGQncIvDT0pNWVQ3Wxl2-0n3S-4J7dMOl5ORCiF_DKEVk3p_czPJ7RXYcTGBT-h2gIgwBBgf1nQaix8O-DoQcxMTTLFJl9OLMU9NAGCS2gpmwmw/s1800/Moreton-3.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1150" data-original-width="1800" height="204" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_ky8SRgtLYMJRxFdZcnuO9j_6yr60lccTv0DIeROt3jcxYcg3xDLcgQN7P1_yZovMIXXuMsvpGQncIvDT0pNWVQ3Wxl2-0n3S-4J7dMOl5ORCiF_DKEVk3p_czPJ7RXYcTGBT-h2gIgwBBgf1nQaix8O-DoQcxMTTLFJl9OLMU9NAGCS2gpmwmw/s320/Moreton-3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Susan was not to be denied her walks, and the next day set out for the Batsford Arboretum and Cotswold Falconry as I explored the many venues in and around our hotel where one could sit and read. We chose yet another of the village hostelries for the evening meal, ankling over to the Bell Inn, which has a story of its own. Near Moreton-in-Marsh is the conjunction of what once were the counties of Gloucestershire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Oxfordshire, but since have been re-drawn into three. It’s marked by the Four Shire Stone, and is said to be the inspiration for the Three-Farthing Stone in J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings.” Tolkien was a regular visitor to Moreton-in-Marsh, and stopped for drinks at The Bell Inn, which became The Prancing Pony in “Lord of the Rings.”<br /><br />Nevertheless, we pursued a very un-Middle-Earth diet and ordered a pizza, fully loaded. (The pizza, that is, not us.) It featured speck ham, Napoli salami, fennel salami, oregano infused tomato sauce, and Fior di Latte mozzarella, and to compound our sinfulness, we ordered garlic bread as well, which turned out to be another form of pizza! Fully loaded, we slept the dreamless sleep of one who’s burping oregano all night, and prepared for our next-day’s journey to Manchester.<br /><br /><p></p>B. A. Nilssonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04932818130398280413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133180.post-5359260188879772522023-09-08T20:23:00.002-04:002024-02-15T20:33:40.996-05:00First Stop: By the Sea<p><span style="color: #274e13;"><i>Travel Diary Dept.:</i> My wife and I uprooted ourselves to travel for a month this summer. I’ve given a couple of accounts of our version of ocean travel, and I’ll get back to that shortly, but here’s a break from chronology and the water to explore the first dry-land stop on our itinerary: Seaford, a coastal town in southern England. All of the photos are my doing.</span><br /><strike><br /> </strike> <br /><br />AS A TOURIST, it seems hypocritical to seek “non-touristy” places to visit: after all, aren’t I traveling in order to see and otherwise experience that which has proven its appeal to others? Yes, but too often too many of those others are clogging the place I want to see. In planning a trip to the UK, my travel agent suggested a first stop on the south coast of England. Brighton was mentioned. So was Seaford, both of which lie east of Southampton, where our ship would dock, and south of London, which we would save until last.<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijVSg0bJgnO6lAOgz0JkQyMQ7itmi9cp87IBae-D3eCw15BZPUKsrgsGb2-1q61ln4CHJod4uZxGUI9Tg0e2wHaaBkYJ2fI0YYl1QRyqtn7VFpP9xYsIKCDT2bmWLboBC_NIEbqqjas86QAJfbmHtFWEpV7Ic8I3CZ5fZALqWL53LXkc31JpuM1Q/s1800/Seaford-1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1800" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijVSg0bJgnO6lAOgz0JkQyMQ7itmi9cp87IBae-D3eCw15BZPUKsrgsGb2-1q61ln4CHJod4uZxGUI9Tg0e2wHaaBkYJ2fI0YYl1QRyqtn7VFpP9xYsIKCDT2bmWLboBC_NIEbqqjas86QAJfbmHtFWEpV7Ic8I3CZ5fZALqWL53LXkc31JpuM1Q/s320/Seaford-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Google Maps provided insight I could have gained nowhere else. I used the Street View function to walk along Brighton’s waterfront street, and I saw a row of ocean-facing buildings built to accommodate the tourists who’d be occupying the nearby beach. Seaford, on the other hand, not only had residences facing the ocean but also an esplanade facing a waterfront of large pebbles. Accommodations were fewer, but we found a place to stay in The Wellington Pub and Hotel, one block up from the esplanade, with its rooms atop what promised to be an old-fashioned pub.<span><a name='more'></a></span><br /><br />This it was, although every pub we visited (and we visited many) during the subsequent weeks was, if not truly of significant vintage then designed to replicate the vintage look. But we couldn’t have made a better start to this trip than the Wellington. It was a family-run place in what proved to be a family-defined village. Jaime, our travel agent, gently discouraged us from this place, noting that it had but four rooms, all of them one flight up over the pub and restaurant, and no elevator. Worse yet, she cautioned, there’d be an open-mic event our first night there. Sold. I would look forward to the relative peacefulness of a mere four rooms, and ingratiate myself with the locals by signing up to perform. <br /><br />Our room was perfect for adjusting to our first night off the boat. It looked over a quiet street, and the English Channel could be seen a mere 500 feet (all right, 150 metres) away. We would stay in more luxurious rooms during our travels, but none with more comfortable simplicity. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLVWol5wt1Psz6b1B0TQPj13MhcB-Gg03r4G-R6YU0Lu2f8eUMZ2W3Zx2twi7fILFEXVFJKICK59A193N9A7m31Wqxo6F1T5snX8Zt2foE6qDAhFKGpx5yXumoodAv28RXna-sI6Vr8VucQvbK7VlbrNSGGTZDOdaBX1ebNaOucKadG-JIfmUILg/s1800/Seaford-4.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1800" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLVWol5wt1Psz6b1B0TQPj13MhcB-Gg03r4G-R6YU0Lu2f8eUMZ2W3Zx2twi7fILFEXVFJKICK59A193N9A7m31Wqxo6F1T5snX8Zt2foE6qDAhFKGpx5yXumoodAv28RXna-sI6Vr8VucQvbK7VlbrNSGGTZDOdaBX1ebNaOucKadG-JIfmUILg/s320/Seaford-4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Down to the pub for a lunch of – what else? – fish and chips and a steak-and-ale pie. Hard to move after a meal like that, but we ambled to the esplanade, the walkway fronting the gravel beach. It’s lined with benches, which is great for me, whose walking ability runs out quickly. So I sat while Susan explored the path, no doubt making conversation with everyone she passed. I, on the other hand, was able to talk with nobody, my preferred method of socializing.<br /><br />Just before the open mic event started, in the pub’s good-sized dining room, I got a message from Moz Walsh. He’s the fellow we’d be meeting in Manchester in a few days, and I’ll tell the story of our meeting when we get to that city. His message was a warning: He had investigated the event – don’t ask me how – and determined that the featured repertory was as far from my own as possible. I assured him that I’m accustomed to being the pariah on the bill. But I didn’t know how correct he was until the performers began performing.<br /><br />The event was hosted by Larry, a local singer-songwriter actually named Steven Alder. He knew all of those who were there to perform. Except me, of course. Those who took the stage before I did were of a piece, at least to my innocent ears. I’d better explain.<br /><br />I’ve spent a lifetime insulated from popular music. To me, “oldies” are recordings by Toscanini or Paul Whiteman. I’m reasonably familiar with songs from about 1850 to 1949, but I’m hopeless after that. So I didn’t know the covers these performers offered, and their original songs sounded fairly similar to one another, a variety of medium-tempo ways to complain about blighted love. I’m not suggesting the songs were bad, but I have no background with which to appreciate them. Thus did I feel more and more as if I were clinging to the entertainment margin as the evening progressed. But that’s the way I usually feel when I’m up against any manifestation of popular culture.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghvrqh56t_ZWozcD37DpCqAVjWQH11eGP6E5VQ071dh46VAURYscpibFUSE_NkWsIJJLws9YrqN2xdGJnI-DCCtOENxcg5tWIyATdXJ16PrjyhyphenhyphenlnWNOIAH6ljVBlEMR8d2ca-0-_I5LcZT1zuFtl6LMzYYX1PX7tJIPzc2hREID1mQrLSaBKX4Q/s1800/Seaford-2.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1800" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghvrqh56t_ZWozcD37DpCqAVjWQH11eGP6E5VQ071dh46VAURYscpibFUSE_NkWsIJJLws9YrqN2xdGJnI-DCCtOENxcg5tWIyATdXJ16PrjyhyphenhyphenlnWNOIAH6ljVBlEMR8d2ca-0-_I5LcZT1zuFtl6LMzYYX1PX7tJIPzc2hREID1mQrLSaBKX4Q/s320/Seaford-2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>By the time my turn was called, the doom in the air was palpable. I figured I could cruise a little on being the only Yank in the lineup, and that was true, but I won few laughs with the one-liners I attempted and quickly launched into a tried-and-true a cappella number, a Grit Laskin song called “The Photographers,” an amusingly suggestive piece I learned from a Pete Seeger recording. It went over ... okay. I even did an old gag I stole from Leon Redbone, taking a photo of the audience while insisting they “move closer together. Closer. That’s it.” (And here they are!)<br /><br />Ah, well. It diminished the charm of the Wellington Hotel not a bit. The building, formerly the New Inn, was charming pub-hotel, bought and refurbished by Simon and Nina, with Nina’s twin, Adele, working the pub many evenings. Our hosts couldn’t have been more hospitable.<br /><br />In fact, the whole town seemed hospitable in a way I don’t expect from a coastal destination. As I would learn, Seaford has deliberately positioned itself as an anti-Brighton; that is, a village that prioritizes a family feel over tourist exploitation. We felt welcome, of course, as tourists, but with a sense that we were being slipstreamed into the town’s normal functioning. For breakfast the following morning, we followed the High Street a couple of blocks toward the town center and settled into the Spotted Dog Café where not only were we made welcome but also a succession of canines who escorted their owners therein. A man at an adjoining table, his large old pug beside him, assured us that this was a feature not only of Seaford but also much of the UK. We went on to explore a number of the shops nearby, including a thrift shop funding cancer research where we nabbed a club bag for £6 to use schlepping clothes to a launderette. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd8QZVsFKEb9ffW5tNAwiclCc7JdZrP5IysdaW0lNREYkpuelWHGYkLpTU10IAbAwIUK5aJ55KhrdD60xPjav9lQ8-4Ok63JzYbo1HLkmDI6lL_chGTuisZxqvc1u1gPxerqAeyq5yRV7VBSCna-bvs92nH9bDkkBUHTKeDCqqwB-LIwmWs9asXQ/s1200/Seaford-3.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd8QZVsFKEb9ffW5tNAwiclCc7JdZrP5IysdaW0lNREYkpuelWHGYkLpTU10IAbAwIUK5aJ55KhrdD60xPjav9lQ8-4Ok63JzYbo1HLkmDI6lL_chGTuisZxqvc1u1gPxerqAeyq5yRV7VBSCna-bvs92nH9bDkkBUHTKeDCqqwB-LIwmWs9asXQ/s320/Seaford-3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Sunday morning I indulged in a full English breakfast at the hotel. It’s a plate of sausage, back bacon (a thick cut containing some loin), fried eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms, fried bread, and beans. It's also called a fry-up, which hardly captures the artery-clogging excess of the meal. I don’t recall Susan asking for a taste of any of it as she superciliously chewed an order of kale and eggs or something similarly ridiculous. My fry-up was delicious. <br /><br />The Wellington serves a roast supper from noon, but we donned our formalwear and slipped away in a taxi to nearby Glyndebourne, there to see Benjamin Britten’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” which I wrote about <a href="http://banilsson.blogspot.com/2023/08/i-put-spell-on-you.html" target="_blank">here</a>.<br /><br />The next morning we breakfasted at the hotel again and, while I packed, Susan set off up the High Street to visit a food co-op we’d seen earlier. She loaded up with sandwiches and snacks for our next limo journey, this time to the Cotswolds and the village of Moreton-in-Marsh.<br /><br /><p></p>B. A. Nilssonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04932818130398280413noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133180.post-65759856599483134232023-09-01T20:14:00.003-04:002024-02-15T15:32:59.282-05:00Kiddie-Kar Travel<script async src="https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-5659235474088159"
crossorigin="anonymous"></script><p><span style="color: #4c1130;"><i>Guest Blogger Dept.</i>: Speaking of travel, here’s Robert Benchley on the subject. Drawings, as usual, are by Gluyas Williams.</span></p><p><strike> </strike> <br /><br />IN AMERICA there are two classes of travel—first class, and with children. Traveling with children corresponds roughly to traveling third-class in Bulgaria. They tell me there is nothing lower in the world than third-class Bulgarian travel.<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6vFDRcQY_byi9BUjEZM9FRQ7jHlbD4KwA_EFcjM9JR3S2I4vb7RIpR75DshV_nVyTMggdIdGvHHTW_IHr6nYWfXsZk5Ae0U7ypA6oz2V2SP9CK-sZsmXYF1kGy3Bzx02KEgnzmi4iFXye59RQPQbon0A6ELQwUlfE7eaRvzUmyPE-WGErq9tVyg/s1228/Benchley%20Ill%20Will.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1068" data-original-width="1228" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6vFDRcQY_byi9BUjEZM9FRQ7jHlbD4KwA_EFcjM9JR3S2I4vb7RIpR75DshV_nVyTMggdIdGvHHTW_IHr6nYWfXsZk5Ae0U7ypA6oz2V2SP9CK-sZsmXYF1kGy3Bzx02KEgnzmi4iFXye59RQPQbon0A6ELQwUlfE7eaRvzUmyPE-WGErq9tVyg/s320/Benchley%20Ill%20Will.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>The actual physical discomfort of traveling with the Kiddies is not so great, although you do emerge from it looking as if you had just moved the piano upstairs single-handed. It is the mental wear-and-tear that tells and for a sensitive man there is only one thing worse, and that is a church wedding in which he is playing the leading comedy role.<br /><br />There are several branches of the ordeal of Going on Choo-Choo, and it is difficult to tell which is the roughest. Those who have taken a very small baby on a train maintain that this ranks as pleasure along with having a nerve killed. On the other hand, those whose wee companions are in the romping stage, simply laugh at the claims of the first group. Sometimes you will find a man who has both an infant and a romper with him. Such a citizen should receive a salute of twenty-one guns every time he enters the city and should be allowed to wear the insignia of the Pater Dolorosa, giving him the right to solicit alms on the cathedral steps.<span><a name='more'></a></span><br /><br />There is much to be said for those who maintain that rather should the race be allowed to die out than that babies should be taken from place to place along our national arteries of traffic. On the other hand, there are moments when babies are asleep. (Oh, yes, there are. There must be.) But it is practically a straight run of ten or a dozen hours for your child of four. You may have a little trouble in getting the infant to doze off, especially as the train newsboy waits crouching in the vestibule until he sees signs of slumber on the child’s face and then rushes in to yell, “Copy of <i>Life</i>, out today!” right by its pink, shell-like ear. But after it is asleep, your troubles are over except for wondering how you can shift your ossifying arm to a new position without disturbing its precious burden.<br /><br />If the child is of an age which denies the existence of sleep, however, preferring to run up and down the aisle of the car rather than sit in its chair (at least a baby can’t get out of its chair unless it falls out and even then it can’t go far), then every minute of the trip is full of fun. On the whole, having traveled with children of all the popular ages, I would be inclined to award the Hair-Shirt to the man who successfully completes the ride with a boy of, let us say, three.<br /><br />In the first place, you start with the pronounced ill-will of two-thirds of the rest of the occupants of the car. You see them as they come in, before the train starts, glancing at you and yours with little or no attempt to conceal the fact that they wish they had waited for the four o’clock. Across from you is perhaps a large man who, in his home town, has a reputation for eating little children. He wears a heavy gold watch chain and wants to read through a lot of reports on the trip. He is just about as glad to be opposite a small boy as he would be if it were a hurdy-gurdy.<br /><br />In back of you is a lady in a black silk dress who doesn’t like the porter. Ladies in black silk dresses always seem to board the train with an aversion to the porter. The fact that the porter has to be in the same car with her makes her fussy to start with, and when she discovers that in front of her is a child of three who is already eating (you simply have to give him a lemon-drop to keep him quiet at least until the train starts) she decides that the best thing to do is simply to ignore him and not give him the slightest encouragement to become friendly. The child therefore picks her out immediately to be his buddy.<br /><br />For a time after things get to going all you have to do is answer questions about the scenery. This is only what you must expect when you have children, and it happens no matter where you are. You can always say that you don’t know who lives in that house or what that cow is doing. Sometimes you don’t even have to look up when you say that you don’t know. This part is comparatively easy.<br /><br />It is when the migratory fit comes on that you will be put to the test. Suddenly you look and find the boy staggering down the aisle, peering into the faces of people as he passes them. “Here! Come back here, Roger!” you cry, lurching after him and landing across the knees of the young lady two seats down. Roger takes this as a signal for a game and starts to run, screaming with laughter. After four steps he falls and starts to cry.<br /><br />On being carried kicking back to his seat, he is told that he mustn’t run down the aisle again. This strikes even Roger as funny, because it is such a flat thing to say. Of course he is going to run down the aisle again and he knows it as well as you do. In the meantime, however, he is perfectly willing to spend a little time with the lady in the black silk dress.<br /><br />“Here, Roger,” you say, “don’t bother the lady.”<br /><br />“Hello, little boy,” the lady says, nervously, and tries to go back to her book. The interview is over as far as she is concerned. Roger, however, thinks that it would be just dandy to get up in her lap. This has to be stopped, and Roger has to be whispered to.<br /><br />He then announces that it is about time that he went to the wash-room. You march down the car, steering him by the shoulders and both lurching together as the train takes the curves and attracting wide attention to your very obvious excursion. Several kindly people smile knowingly at you as you pass and try to pat the boy on the head, but their advances are repelled, it being a rule of all children to look with disfavor on any attentions from strangers. The only people they want to play with are those who hate children.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVrOGVb90CO4KJv3EUi4Ndxj6rw8P8di-mkI8YSfVfU98zxpFC5cL-D1TpSaPcooEnBqs6HJmXksWdSfvCiw-il7RpuVjcGEyJExux0mjPBnUdhmnmABp5rLTjI1Yjblz6UUGeKnPILwGnxOssMchyphenhyphenUk1-1Jt6H8b4qXShXQOPiMH0In2XAo-Imw/s1232/Benchley%20Passageway.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1232" data-original-width="1193" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVrOGVb90CO4KJv3EUi4Ndxj6rw8P8di-mkI8YSfVfU98zxpFC5cL-D1TpSaPcooEnBqs6HJmXksWdSfvCiw-il7RpuVjcGEyJExux0mjPBnUdhmnmABp5rLTjI1Yjblz6UUGeKnPILwGnxOssMchyphenhyphenUk1-1Jt6H8b4qXShXQOPiMH0In2XAo-Imw/s320/Benchley%20Passageway.jpg" width="310" /></a></div>On reaching the wash-room you discover that the porter has just locked it and taken the key with him, simply to be nasty. This raises quite a problem. You explain the situation as well as possible, which turns out to be not well enough. There is every indication of loud crying and perhaps worse. You call attention to the Burrows Rustless Screen sign which you are just passing and stand in the passage-way by the drinking-cups, feverishly trying to find things in the landscape as it whirls by which will serve to take the mind off the tragedy of the moment. You become so engrossed in this important task that it is some time before you discover that you are completely blocking the passage-way and the progress of some fifteen people who want to get off at Utica. There is nothing for you to do but head the procession and get off first.<br /><br />Once out in the open, the pride and prop of your old age decides that the thing to do is pay the<br />engineer a visit, and starts off up the platform at a terrific rate. This amuses the onlookers and gives you a little exercise after being cramped up in that old car all the morning. The imminent danger of the train’s starting without you only adds to the fun. At that, there might be worse things than being left in Utica. One of them is getting back on the train again to face the old gentleman with the large watch chain.<br /><br />The final phase of the ordeal, however, is still in store for you when you make your way (and Roger’s way) into the diner. Here the plunging march down the aisle of the car is multiplied by six (the diner is never any nearer than six cars and usually is part of another train). On the way, Roger sees a box of animal crackers belonging to a little girl and commandeers it. The little girl, putting up a fight, is promptly pushed over, starting what promises to be a free-for-all fight between the two families. Lurching along after the apologies have been made, it is just a series of unwarranted attacks by Roger on sleeping travelers and equally unwarranted evasions by Roger of the kindly advances of very nice people who love children.<br /><br />In the diner, it turns out that the nearest thing they have suited to Roger’s customary diet is veal cutlets, and you hardly think that his mother would approve of those. Everything else has peppers or sardines in it. A curry of lamb across the way strikes the boy’s fancy and he demands some of that. On being told that he has not the slightest chance in the world of getting it but how would he like a little crackers-and-milk, he becomes quite upset and threatens to throw a fork at the Episcopal clergyman sitting opposite. Pieces of toast are waved alluringly in front of him and he is asked to consider the advantages of preserved figs and cream, but it is curry of lamb or he gets off the train. He doesn’t act like this at home. In fact, he is noted for his tractability. There seems to be something about the train that brings out all the worst that is in him, all the hidden traits that he has inherited from his mother’s side of the family. There is nothing else to do but say firmly: “Very well, then, Roger. We’ll go back without any nice dinner,” and carry him protesting from the diner, apologizing to the head steward for the scene and considering dropping him overboard as you pass through each vestibule.<br /><br />In fact, I had a cousin once who had to take three of his little ones on an all-day trip from Philadelphia to Boston. It was the hottest day of the year and my cousin had on a woolen suit. By the time he reached Hartford, people in the car noticed that he had only two children with him. At Worcester he had only one. No one knew what had become of the others and no one asked. It seemed better not to ask. He reached Boston alone and never explained what had become of the tiny tots. Anyone who has ever traveled with tiny tots of his own, however, can guess.<br /><br />– Robert Benchley, <i>Detroit Athletic Club News</i>, Sept. 1923, pp. 49-52. Collected in <i>Pluck and Luck</i> (Henry Holt, 1925), among other collections.<br /><br /><p></p>B. A. Nilssonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04932818130398280413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133180.post-82016558993191756542023-08-25T22:14:00.011-04:002024-02-07T22:26:59.987-05:00The Ocean Beneath Our Feet<p>WE HAVE NEVER crossed an ocean before. We have never even taken a shore-hugging cruise. With airplane travel growing ever more hellish, our recent vacation destinations have been places reachable by car. This year, we decided to go for broke. And I do mean broke, as we’ve never spent anything approaching this amount of money on fun before. We have conflicting stories of motivation. Susan insists it was to celebrate our 40th anniversary. I say it’s because we’re at an age at which coevals are dropping dead. I suppose both are true.<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5ArZTXU2wIR2Byxhy6UIFUX7Gr_y2shhLzC4upFIKsAukMbgR2u-ClzfUrM6YSiADYPaO7B33p0OS8ynNyjjg3b0teQXquj9Uf7YJ0wjI_EnbQFhpcE3CTHpcR0ZgtX9215aSd04zEOcSBZcjEYU0XsbKV8NBstLVR0RCiRtOQX6KNpbiTmlKHA/s5472/IMG_5591.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3648" data-original-width="5472" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5ArZTXU2wIR2Byxhy6UIFUX7Gr_y2shhLzC4upFIKsAukMbgR2u-ClzfUrM6YSiADYPaO7B33p0OS8ynNyjjg3b0teQXquj9Uf7YJ0wjI_EnbQFhpcE3CTHpcR0ZgtX9215aSd04zEOcSBZcjEYU0XsbKV8NBstLVR0RCiRtOQX6KNpbiTmlKHA/s320/IMG_5591.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><p>Let’s back up a bit to see how we got ourselves on board the Queen Mary 2. The home stretch, so to speak, occurred as we wheeled off the elevator and turned the corner. We faced a long, a very long hallway, although it seemed too small for a hallway, yet too large for an aisle. It was flanked with doors, as you’d expect in a hotel. But this was no ordinary corridor. My wife and I were proceeding to our stateroom on the Queen Mary 2, beginning what would be a month-long getaway. I sat in a transport chair. Susan pushed. We anticipated, correctly, that my weakening legs would be daunted by aspects of this trip. Besides: A chair gets you places denied to those attempting ordinary ambulation.<span></span></p><a name='more'></a>Check-in. Simple. Our travel agents, Tom Carpenter and Jaime Weinberg – who were kind enough to treat us to lunch at the Red Hook Tavern, mere blocks from Brooklyn’s Pier 12 – dropped us at the embarkation area, a series of sheds, it seemed, where passengers were shuffled through a series of checkpoints. But the chair got us through in no time. Each agent who sought information and then passed us along our way was chatty and delightful. In no time Susan was wheeling me along a series of ramps that culminated in the gangway to the ship.<br /><br />It’s impossible to appreciate the size of this juggernaut when you’re up close. Large swaths of the vessel come into view as you near the pier, but those are only teases. Once you’re close enough to board, sheds and ramps obscure the view. So it’s really only as you gaze down a corridor or, better still, stand on the perimeter of Deck Seven that at least the length of the ship is revealed. But watch out: that’s the deck where the joggers run, and they don’t tolerate unmoving oafs like me.<br /><br />Yet for a vessel that carries 2,600 passengers and 1,400 crew, we rarely ran into crowds. There’s a social self-segregation imposed by the nature of the various entertainment options and dining venues. The menu-based restaurants impose a dress code after six p.m., although it’s nothing draconian, asking only for collared shirts and non-raggedy trousers. Two nights a week more formal dress is encouraged, which is one reason that I dragged along a tuxedo.<br /><br />As I noted in an earlier piece, my misanthropic core was tested by the realization that we’d be dining in a massive room with people far too near at hand. The Queen Mary 2 reminds us that it’s the only ocean-crossing vehicle plying the waters. It was built for luxury, as its art-deco appointments assert, without overlooking the needs of hoi polloi, for whom the self-service buffet area offers nearly endless help-yourself chow. We tried it for lunch one day. It was frightening. Despite the bounty of food on display, food of all kinds – meats, starches, breads, vegetables, desserts, serve-yourself or carved to your liking – despite all this, the impatience was palpable, literally breathing down your neck. Which is why we took most of the rest of our meals in the Britannia Room. <p></p><p>As soon as we were settled there for our first evening’s supper, Susan introduced herself to the couple at an adjoining table. They were British, probably in their 70s. I searched their faces to see if they were feeling the traditional British annoyance at having Yanks, as we from the colonies are termed, intrude into their space. I didn’t see it. They made polite enquiries about our travel, and Susan happily shared a précis of our itinerary. They, it turned out, were heading home after a quick turn in New York. Their names were Stuart and Jean. He was a caterer, she a teacher, both retired. I played my trump card. It tends to work only with older folks, people who grew up in the 1950s. I explained that I would be seeking fellow Goon Show fans during my travels. Both of them immediately did their impressions of Eccles.<br /><br />“The Goon Show” aired on BBC Radio from 1951 to 1960, created by and starring Spike Milligan, and it boosted fellow-performers Harry Secombe and Peter Sellers to fame. The three played a variety of crazy characters who were put into hilariously unlikely scenarios – climbing Mount Everest from the inside, flying to the sun to extinguish its fire – and one of the most beloved of those characters was Milligan’s Eccles, who had a voice not unlike Edgar Bergen’s Mortimer Snerd. Hearing our dining-room neighbors trade comments à la Eccles was as effective an ice-breaker as I could have wished. That Stuart had worked in foodservice was another, and it gave us the chance during the rest of the voyage to compare notes on the excellent menu choices.<br /><br />With my shield of misanthropy thus pierced, I figured that we could check out the evening’s entertainment in the Royal Court Theatre, which presents its shows at 8 PM (for those who opt for the early-supper option) and 10:15, for civilized diners like us. “Chanteuse” was the name of the singing duo, Laura Pavles and Tara Martinez, and their show was titled “It’s Broadway, Baby,” performed at a brisk pace with an admirable group of live musicians behind them. It was a 45-minute show – as we’d learn, all of the shows share that length and pacing – and it taught me that I’m enough out of touch to not recognize all but a couple of the songs that hurried by. <br /><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglaN3YlyWXpkZM8EHwaSYYT5k3IQDw4QVYNfiPp9VuVQSGaScMB_7XY1ohly38EqZH8rooLBRqbDm48RBc3ZDHnLDVvzCr7FB8F-6ptVISOZ5FSeGY_Hrk0N9T1t5caW9W6qSckLWpq8EXZW5kRlJ34la6IvWrShx4HllbuGIjwcVttXJLXl9wpQ/s5472/IMG_5661.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3648" data-original-width="5472" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglaN3YlyWXpkZM8EHwaSYYT5k3IQDw4QVYNfiPp9VuVQSGaScMB_7XY1ohly38EqZH8rooLBRqbDm48RBc3ZDHnLDVvzCr7FB8F-6ptVISOZ5FSeGY_Hrk0N9T1t5caW9W6qSckLWpq8EXZW5kRlJ34la6IvWrShx4HllbuGIjwcVttXJLXl9wpQ/s320/IMG_5661.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>My plan had been to explore the hell out of the ship this first day on board – it’s quite large – but we were too fascinated by our cabin and our private balcony – and the complimentary bottle of sparkling wine in our in-room fridge – to roam very much before supper. And then we slept in long enough to miss any chance at breakfast. As if we might starve on board this ship! <br /><br />In spite of the annoying Americanness displayed by many of our fellow travelers, the Queen Mary 2 is British. Decidedly. An overweening sense of elegance informs the layout and decor. Carpets. Murals. Odd bits of inlaid sculpture on the walls flanking the planetarium entrance. The formality of dress code, even when rendered threadbare by the sartorial preferences of Yank tourists. And lunch at the Golden Lion Pub, which we enjoyed on Day 2 after sleeping in long enough to miss all breakfast opportunities (except room service, which we eschewed for the entirety of our shipboard time). <br /><br />Forty pages of drinks (including a few celebrity photos) give you sufficient choices of libation, while the single-page food menu leads, not surprisingly, with fish and chips. Complete with mushy peas, which we would discover is an essential part of that dish throughout the UK, celebrating a time when dried, cellar-stored peas were a vital dietary supplement. It was delicious, and set the stage for a succession of pub visits throughout our travels. Susan enjoyed another typically English dish: chicken tikka masala. And she continued her policy of talking to anyone, this time sweeping down on a young couple who’d brought their carriage-contained baby into the pub. The moms traded oohs and ahhs; I buried my face in my fish.<br /><br />Into the tux for the first of two formal evenings, and I learned that I take the tuxedo much too seriously. Or, to give me more credit, that I am almost alone in my respect for its tradition. It was born as a semi-formal alternative to the real soup-and-fish (white tie and tails), allowing the wearer some freedom from starched shirt and get-in-the-way coattails. But it’s still supposed to be an ensemble of black and white. No scarlet bow ties or cummerbunds; no crushed-velvet anything. Yet among the contingent who chose to go the full tux (a dark suit is also permitted) were dotted some lamentable lapses of taste. Now will you believe the extent of my snobbishness?<br /><br />Susan looked gorgeous, of course, in a simple sheath of a gown, and took immediate possession again of the social graces, sweeping our neighboring diners with greetings and insisting I do likewise. Thus we met the family seated at the table to my left – a British gentleman named Alan and his sons James (27) and Sam (15). Somehow it was revealed not only that I sing but also that songs by Flanders & Swann were part of my repertory. “Ah,” he said. “Do you know the one about ... transport?” And so I began singing “Transport of Delight.” And then proved that I also knew “The Gnu,” and “The Hippopotamus.”<br /><br />I see now that there was no need for me to think I needed to reinforce my Anglophilia cred any more than that, but I let drop that I’d seen Alec Guinness on stage, among other classic British stars, sending us segueing to British movies. Inspiring Alan to come up with a quiz. Did I know a film that starred John Mills and Alec Guinness, one of his all-time favorites? Yes: “Tunes of Glory.” How about the film that won Guinness an Academy Award? Of course: “Bridge on the River Kwai.” I rhapsodized about “Kind Hearts and Coronets,” lauding Dennis Price's performance ... all right, then: What other film did Price and Guinness co-star in? Careful, it's sort of a trick question. I mulled for a moment before remembering: “Tunes of Glory” again. I had mentioned that Jeremy Brett was in the Guinness play I saw, thus question four: What musical did Brett co-star in, singing a well-known solo?<br /><br />I drew a blank. Failure! Embarrassingly, it was “My Fair Lady.” Which I’d rewatched only a couple of months earlier. Pretty rarefied stuff, I fear, and poor Sam fled from the table as soon as he plausibly could. Even poor James was looking distraught, but this was when Susan’s volubility became a merciful refuge for him. Alan and I, meanwhile, were now the fastest of friends. <br /><br />More, I fear, will follow.<p></p><span><!--more--></span><span><!--more--></span><span><!--more--></span>B. A. Nilssonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04932818130398280413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133180.post-23291358498842578872023-08-18T22:46:00.003-04:002023-12-27T11:11:18.636-05:00A Life on the Ocean Wave, Part 1<p>ONE OF THE ANNOYING FEATURES of the 1976 Gene Wilder-Richard Pryor movie “Silver Streak” was the amount of time the various characters spent explaining why they were taking a train, as if making apologies for this time-honored means of travel. Airplane travel could be luxurious through the 1950s, but fares fell and the carriers figured out how to fit more and more people into those airborne shells. At one point in the 1960s, my father, a frequent air-traveler for his business, realized that a newly hatched cabin-seating plan was little different from slave-transport ships, a comparison that has picked up some internet life.<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRoNoH3fLDIjG1gY-rVp9Dtx5-AwVq5TZfdIAcMLAFTE9Gnvc5XAlOPfh-q50_hXtYp42HYCcjkDz2JmtmHSHK9A43ukbhNkjSWplyPLQbBmrFsOTwhCHtgzPGQdFeAJeW8mmqQOj0ks87rpfCrEg7E5FPTQX-chTLDgTsWZxZgF26yqomm6zz4A/s1600/QM2%20Our%20stateroom.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRoNoH3fLDIjG1gY-rVp9Dtx5-AwVq5TZfdIAcMLAFTE9Gnvc5XAlOPfh-q50_hXtYp42HYCcjkDz2JmtmHSHK9A43ukbhNkjSWplyPLQbBmrFsOTwhCHtgzPGQdFeAJeW8mmqQOj0ks87rpfCrEg7E5FPTQX-chTLDgTsWZxZgF26yqomm6zz4A/s320/QM2%20Our%20stateroom.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>The 1965 Broadway musical “Do I Hear a Waltz?” has a Stephen Sondheim lyric that finishes “Your chance of survival is so remote,/You're far better off to cut your throat – /But who has the time to take a boat?/What do we do? We fly!” So it was bad even then and, as you undoubtedly know, it has become far, far worse. <br /><br />Especially for me, as I am large both in vertical and horizontal directions. I’m the fellow that late-arriving passengers hope like hell not to be seated beside. I’m the one getting yelled at by flight attendants because my foot has intruded into the aisle. So when the subject arose of taking a post (such as it is)-pandemic vacation, I insisted on a domestic, driveable itinerary. Until a friend decried my short-sightedness and reminded me that there’s a ship that crosses the Atlantic.<span><a name='more'></a></span><br /><br />The Queen Mary 2 has been doing so since she replaced the Queen Elizabeth II in 2004, and remains the only ocean liner plying that formidable expanse. A voyage aboard the QM2 isn’t a cruise, as the Cunard Line is quick to point out: it’s a crossing. The trip we eventually booked had no other stops than Brooklyn and Southampton, England. The cost, we reasoned, was on a par with business class or better on any of the airlines if the airline happened to be in a generous mood at that moment. And we could select a pair of crossings that giving us a fortnight in the UK. <br /><br />We worked through a travel agent. We booked our crossings eight months in advance, allowing us to take advantage of a Black Friday sale, my first awareness that such things exist outside of the retail-goods industry. We chose a cabin a couple of steps up from the entry-level digs, giving us a private balcony where we could laze and view the ocean. All in all, it promised seven days of luxury each way, with a frightening amount of food on offer. My only concern was that I’d be sharing this space – admittedly gigantic – with some 2,600 other people. And I’m a very committed curmudgeon. <br /><br />Let’s get on board and discover what happened. We begin in Brooklyn, leaving the pier at about 5 PM Friday, July 21, 2023. If you’re not actually looking out to sea as the ship departs, the only giveaway is a very slight motion under your feet – and if you’re already sipping some cocktails, you’d be forgiven for blaming it on the booze. But that view of the sea is easy to find: From your stateroom balcony, from one of the lounges or dining rooms, on the periphery of Deck 7, where you can circumnavigate the ship outdoors on foot, taking care not to get run over by the puffing, high-stepping exercise freaks. <br /><br />Homebody that I am, my first concern is the stateroom my wife and I will share for the next six nights. While it isn’t the kind of palatial suite in which you’d find Carole Lombard swanning around in one of her 1930s romantic comedies, it was more than we expected, packing in a king-sized bed, foldout couch, small coffee table, desk and chair, bathroom, and plenty of closet space. And, of course, the balcony, with its own table and lounge chairs.<br /><br />We were required to assemble for Emergency Procedure instructions, which were offered in the assembly area to which you (and a few hundred others) are assigned – the place to where you’ll rush should an alarm sound. We got a preview of that phenomenon at this initial event, since nobody knew where to go and, having eventually gotten there, where to actually assemble. I was comforted to note that there was plenty of room for this panicky aimlessness.<br /><br />That we eventually would fall into a shipboard routine seemed far-fetched at that moment. And suppertime brought a little more confusion. Because my walking ability is uncertain, I brought a transport chair. Although it’s an awkward thing to carry, it was also a strategic instrument to get me preferential treatment when possible. It certainly got us on the ship quickly, and reminded me that not all the more able people you pass will look kindly upon you and your infirmity. We had reserved a table in the large dining room, the Britannia Restaurant. Ours would be wheelchair-accessible. This gave me the pleasant picture of a table for two, off to one side, with room for that chair. <br /><br />It was a table for two, all right, but reached only after navigating half of the massive dining room. And it was accessible only in the sense that you could be wheeled to it, then have your chair whisked away. Or, at least, have my chair whisked away, as I was obviously more ambulatory than those who spent all waking hours in such a vehicle. And we were flanked by another two-top, this one against the window, and a four-top. Meaning that inter-table conversation would be mandatory. Especially when it’s my wife who’s leading the way.<br /><br /><br /><p></p>B. A. Nilssonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04932818130398280413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133180.post-54011663711077734712023-08-11T18:44:00.001-04:002023-08-11T18:57:37.400-04:00Major Impact<p><a href="https://www.amyengelhardt.com/" target="_blank">AMY ENGELHARDT</a> IS A VERY FUNNY PERSON. I hesitate to label her a comedian, although comedy seems to bubble from the soul of her being. But she’s also an excellent singer, as deft at ensemble singing as she is putting across a solo song. And that song may well be one of her own, because she’s an extremely skilled songwriter as well, whose solo recording “Not Gonna Be Pretty” is an amazing distillation of her talents. She also writes prose with the deft hand of one who lives comfortably among words.<br /></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghorH5IrJsybU2jBWgye9GPrJk9MCFwy5YNpKrFQ3uo0BgBQcTgKzMJ59puDYzV0ppj5e4toX4efOPb1clOsteaNSMW21OpyrQS3W-Irv2eftjP01UwDW0w-Jn_1OC0JuGRfVr1ero6giK1KY0gDaDqbB5QTRH1uXpqLjRMoe5B-WRuIYSe0y7VQ/s909/Amy-1.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="909" data-original-width="759" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghorH5IrJsybU2jBWgye9GPrJk9MCFwy5YNpKrFQ3uo0BgBQcTgKzMJ59puDYzV0ppj5e4toX4efOPb1clOsteaNSMW21OpyrQS3W-Irv2eftjP01UwDW0w-Jn_1OC0JuGRfVr1ero6giK1KY0gDaDqbB5QTRH1uXpqLjRMoe5B-WRuIYSe0y7VQ/s320/Amy-1.jpg" width="267" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Amy Engelhardt</i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>So I should call her a comedian, because it’s the funny people who are most adept at being serious. They understand how irony works; they play with sounds and language to underscore serious points. And Engelhardt brings this all together in “Impact,” which I saw at the Edinburgh Fringe. It’s an intense hour of songs and words with Amy front and center telling a story she needed to tell. That it celebrates – in only most moderately joyful sense of the term – the tragedy of the airplane disaster in Lockerbie, Scotland, in a labyrinthine journey of heartbreak and grief, without lapsing into the maudlin or making a cheap sale of the heart-warming finish, is a testament to Engelhardt’s many skills, all brought together in a piece speaks to all of us who have been anywhere near a tragedy. In other words, all of us.<br /><br />She establishes three things at the outset of her show: First, that’s she’s a Syracuse University grad; second, that she grew up in New Jersey; and third, that the story to follow will celebrate “thin moments.” Let’s take the last one first. Thin moments, she explained, are those moments in which you feel an uncanny resonance between whatever it is you’re up to and something related, portentous, and less-defined. It’s not <i>déjà vu</i>, although there’s some overlap, and it’s not the phenomenon of “thin places,” another Celtic term, but this one describing a resonant location.<span></span><p></p><a name='more'></a>“Need a sign? See one./Need a hand? Be one./Follow every clue./Something's callin' you,” she sings in the show’s opening number, “True.” Engelhardt accompanies herself on keyboard, with excellent support from cellist Harriet Davidson and drummer Tom Bancroft, performers who straddle many different categories of music.<br /><br />Growing up in New Jersey gives you a tremendous reliance upon empirical evidence to establish the credibility of anything. Jerseyites are born cynics. Engelhardt takes pride in that quality, and yet the experience she shares is revealed as a succession of thin moments, possibly unexplainable to a Newark-based bystander.<br /><br />Graduating from Syracuse University when she did put her in the position of knowing, or at least knowing of, many of the students killed when Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland, at the end of 1988. “Impact” begins with a message Engelhardt shared with some friends in 2019, revealing her plan to visit Lockerbie during a work-visit to the UK. A succession of stories unrolls in an interconnected tapestry. Although it’s not a two-dimensional experience: we’ve got at least four of those pesky dimensions at work here.<br /><br />There’s the time factor, of course. 270 deaths were recorded, achieved in such a cold-blooded manner that the story didn’t leave the front pages for a very long time. Added to that was the time it took for people on the periphery of the event, people like Amy, forced to process the heartache of the loss of friends. Which spun, for her, into the subsequent time, as she pursued a career path those friends no longer could follow.<br /><br />There’s the dimensionality of space, of a field in Lockerbie where fuselage and body parts were strewn, where a local woman named Josephine Donaldson found a handbag that contained cards celebrating Nicole Boulanger’s 21st birthday. Nicole was a friend of Amy, so we add time and find Engelhardt meeting Donaldson in 2019, absorbing her story and its resonance with Boulanger.<br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-MucvDpZWdT2SBxjTu395EKjaRF2jexT2ybPBerF-Oc_5ZY8ZT6mDBZtY4xM3WIuW-4b57jEn4_YE5KIS7IcVV_z9LH3KIAngTkDdkod4_hI1GSO2fRlFHewsTwFQWiwOyodxWGtbsn00rS2p3k745Zh-siUCkN9fJ9MFn71oN1hKweVtioRz5Q/s1720/Amy-2.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1227" data-original-width="1720" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-MucvDpZWdT2SBxjTu395EKjaRF2jexT2ybPBerF-Oc_5ZY8ZT6mDBZtY4xM3WIuW-4b57jEn4_YE5KIS7IcVV_z9LH3KIAngTkDdkod4_hI1GSO2fRlFHewsTwFQWiwOyodxWGtbsn00rS2p3k745Zh-siUCkN9fJ9MFn71oN1hKweVtioRz5Q/s320/Amy-2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Tom Bancroft, Harriet Davidson, and <br />Amy Engelhardt. Photo by Alex Stein.</i></td></tr></tbody></table>There’s a two-dimensional page, of the New York <i>Daily News,</i> picturing Nicole’s mother at the moment of learning about her daughter’s death, firing what would become the chain of associations sending Engelhardt to the crash site. There’s another page, this one of a book titled “Good Omens,” written by Terry Pratchett and Amy’s friend Neil Gaiman, subsequently turned into an Amazon Prime series – leading to a job for Engelhardt when she desperately needed one. The job was to promote the series while dressed as a nun, leading a coven of costumed nuns in song. A job that sent her to various cities, including London in 2019. A good omen indeed!<br /><br />What I’m mentioning are merely elements of a far more robust story, told with pictures and video and, of course, song. But the center of it is Amy Engelhardt, who puts her tremendous storytelling talent to its best use in this performance, acted by her with the ease of one so familiar with the tools of comedy that she merely absorbs them into the narrative. It’s not a comedy, but it’s not without some laughs – sometimes laughs with a bitter edge. It’s a shocking, absorbing hour-long show skillfully directed by Kira Simring, who here suffers the fate of the excellent director insofar as we can’t tell who’s responsible for which element of the piece.<br /><br />One of the emotional by-products of the Lockerbie tragedy was anger, tremendous anger both at the zealots who perpetrated it and at the cruel randomness of a fate that would choose this particular group of people to destroy so horribly. Yet anger never enters into “Impact.” Instead, and absolutely correctly, Engelhardt calls for kindness, the only salve, the only cure. <br /><br />Nicole’s handbag was found, but not any evidence of her body. Amy celebrates her friend – and Josephine, who found the handbag, with a song titled “The Girl in the Garden.” Here’s a brief portion: <br /><br />There’s a girl in the garden.<br />My unexpected guest<br />There’s a girl in the garden.<br />Looking to the west<br />She’s 21 forever, and forever homeward bound<br />The girl in the garden, <br />One of 13 they never found.<br /><br />It’s a wrenching moment in the show, offering a thought, an image, that nobody would volunteer to imagine. Yet it conveys its story with a straight-to-the-heart power that only well-crafted songs can evoke. And that’s what this “Impact” is all about. It plays at the Edinburgh Fringe through August 28.<br /><br /><b>Impact</b><br />Written and performed by Amy Engelhardt<br />Directed by Kira Simring<br />The Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh Fringe, August 7<br /><br /><br /><p></p>B. A. Nilssonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04932818130398280413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133180.post-13846514973762952122023-08-04T17:57:00.005-04:002023-08-09T18:14:54.690-04:00I Put a Spell on You<p>THE WORLD OF SHAKESPEARE’S “Midsummer Night’s Dream” begins and ends in a nobleman’s home, taking us into the woods only after the plot has leapt into complications. Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears fashioned an opera libretto that invites us into a fairy-kingdom right away, keeping us there until the final scene forces us back into a fancy drawing room. The emphasis thus shifts from quarreling nobles to the magic of this Athenian wonderland, even as the music that Britten wrote suggests uneasiness. “Take nothing for granted while you’re here,” it says. “However well you think you know the play, your expectations are about to be confounded.”<br /></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSgMcHOCVankO1DMQUTeWnwf4nnLoKt1VqlBrW3zvRQgJE7fmbe3y24LK2gT5_hyMtDZHcwPcrZJLJ2rJFvafYnrgwnD7mJ8jj3sPWjrdASXnCyiPQ8RrI_X77Vbeyju7dhRKZlTTrV_VkLpoWUE49b-5NnkiwuO5CfVIRiNy6FOGha3nH8k9BRQ/s1860/MSN%20Photo%203.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1229" data-original-width="1860" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSgMcHOCVankO1DMQUTeWnwf4nnLoKt1VqlBrW3zvRQgJE7fmbe3y24LK2gT5_hyMtDZHcwPcrZJLJ2rJFvafYnrgwnD7mJ8jj3sPWjrdASXnCyiPQ8RrI_X77Vbeyju7dhRKZlTTrV_VkLpoWUE49b-5NnkiwuO5CfVIRiNy6FOGha3nH8k9BRQ/s320/MSN%20Photo%203.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Puck (Oliver Barlow) and fairies.<br />Photo by Tristram Kenton.</i></td></tr></tbody></table>“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is one of the more popular of Britten’s many operas, and this revival of Peter Hall’s 1981 production, playing through the end of August at the Glyndebourne Festival, is more spirited and charming than any other version I’ve seen. Why this opera is part of this season is examined below; why you should see it now follows immediately.<br /><br />I like an old-fashioned curtain-up, and this one is thrilling. As conductor Dalia Stasevska leads the London Philharmonic through the unsettling glissandi that open the piece, we see sparkles, a forest, an aggregation of sprites. The glade of glistening trees ease back their branches and leaves to allow the spritely chorus to advance to the proscenium. The singing begins – and it’s an augmented Trinity Boys Choir, so the difficult music is effortlessly sung – and what seemed at first to be merely a moon-drenched sylvan woodland reveals itself as anthropomorphic, each black-clad tree wearing foot-baskets of shrubbery with leaves-laden branches for arms. John Bury’s designs were inspired by the art of Arthur Rackham, but if they’re of an era, it’s a timeless one. <span></span><p></p><a name='more'></a>The fairies sport ruffs and wings; their fantastic hairstyles are individualistic. They herald the coming of Oberon (Tim Mead) and Tytania (Soraya Mafi), who are, of course, at odds with one another. She has possession of little changeling boy; Oberon wants that kid and will go to great lengths to achieve this desire. Recreating a role written for Alfred Deller, countertenor Mead brings a Handelian dimension to his character as his purity of voice contrasts with his scheming, patriarchal character. Along with his purity of voice, Mead projects a dignity so unshakable that even his silvery, Batman-like cowl is merely majestic (until a curtain-call moment, but I’ll leave that for you to discover and enjoy). <br /><br />Mafi (who is alternating the role of Tytania with Liv Redpath) stands up to Oberon with a voice that commands and a presence in their opening duet, “Ill Met by Moonlight,” to reinforce that power. This is the reason Oberon has to resort to trickery to get his way. Yet later, when he sings, “I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,” his machinations seem reasonable. What a little moonlight can do!<br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo4MAFcpA-nZe2HqnIkom7GjDQ-lIrlONKXpsyS5cmKKO-_fdFODFr8Oazn9fVaPdQFcFSwjVtCUoH3nnVh5tGYfK6oHKAdUM9SSixX1WNt9ISvhH24-gX7xDtU8rrM5e3WrD4nMlYHjKIHBkIj0JuvtXqnLoCDzDn2n3odGnykoiUVwlN2TaiVg/s2054/MSN%20Photo%201.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1242" data-original-width="2054" height="193" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo4MAFcpA-nZe2HqnIkom7GjDQ-lIrlONKXpsyS5cmKKO-_fdFODFr8Oazn9fVaPdQFcFSwjVtCUoH3nnVh5tGYfK6oHKAdUM9SSixX1WNt9ISvhH24-gX7xDtU8rrM5e3WrD4nMlYHjKIHBkIj0JuvtXqnLoCDzDn2n3odGnykoiUVwlN2TaiVg/s320/MSN%20Photo%201.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The Mechanicals: Snug (Patrick Guetti), <br />Bottom (Brandon Cedel), Quince (Henry <br />Waddington), Starveling (Alex Otterburn), <br />Flute (James Way), and Snout (Alasdair <br />Elliott). Photo by Tristram Kenton.</i></td></tr></tbody></table>It’s Puck, of course, who does his bidding, and young Oliver Barlow brought a fantastic voice and presence to the role. He’s competing against his own costume for attention, what with the shock of bright red hair that leaps up from his head, but he creates a complete character from the look. “I'll put a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes,” he promises Oberon, and the libretto reads merely “He flies off.” O, how he flies! No Peter Pan ever took to the sky more convincingly. <br /><br />We meet Lysander (Caspar Singh) and Hermia (Rachael Wilson), whose first-act dilemma is exposed instead here in the forest, which makes enough dramatic sense to trouble the Shakespeare purists. “The course of true love never did run smooth,” Lysander tautologically tells us, leading to a kind of duet with Hermia that is at once musical and conversational, a testament to Britten’s compositional genius.<br /><br />The Helena and Demetrius tangle is more arresting because she’s pursuing the highly uninterested he, while he moons after the uninterested Hermia. Thus Lauren Fagan and Samuel Dale Johnson are given a livelier encounter. “Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit, for I am sick when I do look on thee,” he sings brutally, and she, undaunted, replies, “And I am sick when I look not on thee.”<br /><br />Six ruffianly villagers enter next, the Rude Mechanicals, intent on presenting “the most lamentable comedy and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby” as entertainment for Athenean royalty. If Flute, who hilariously goes on to play the woebegotten Thisby, seems to have the best moments, it’s a tribute not only to James Way’s excellent performance but also to the genesis of the role: it was originated by Peter Pears.<br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvCrtYPyavv8D4mo7vk9AUemeq1y0sdKERzL6DovTWT9MFi7HHkHB-HfgGEvCZoFF0zqOnR3aTO-vtJYC3SWsyZQ8l7OCF9c-V1rnnjw8BTyMJkOOpFJ1u1df70vxmHsi6bY5vCPGDFopga5nA5RBoYXtvN6SqKTXPoLZ7ZW2zUlW_1etNRf2W0g/s2040/MSN%20Photo%202.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1339" data-original-width="2040" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvCrtYPyavv8D4mo7vk9AUemeq1y0sdKERzL6DovTWT9MFi7HHkHB-HfgGEvCZoFF0zqOnR3aTO-vtJYC3SWsyZQ8l7OCF9c-V1rnnjw8BTyMJkOOpFJ1u1df70vxmHsi6bY5vCPGDFopga5nA5RBoYXtvN6SqKTXPoLZ7ZW2zUlW_1etNRf2W0g/s320/MSN%20Photo%202.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Lysander (Caspar Singh), Hermia (Rachael <br />Wilson), Helena (Lauren Fagan) and <br />Demetrius (Samuel Dale Johnson). <br />Photo by Tristram Kenton.</i></td></tr></tbody></table>Bottom gets the most fuss, what with the convincing ass-hat he soon wears, but Brandon Cedel glories in the part so much that you’re convinced you see his face even after the transformation. All of Bottom’s risible pushiness is captured in the music, and we even get a sense of the individual characters of the rest of his company, from their set-upon director, Quince (Henry Waddington) to Starveling (Alex Otterburn), Snout (Alasdair Elliott), and especially the charmingly reluctant Lion, Snug (Patrick Guetti).<br /><br />Lynne Hockney, who was the production’s original choreographer, directed this revival, with Lauren Poulton taking the task of recreating the choreography. And there’d be much less magic without Paul Pyant’s lighting design.<br /><br />Why is this opera part of this season? Because the arts in the UK are in trouble, and Glyndebourne is one of many institutions victimized by an aggressive cost-cutting move that is jeopardizing London’s identity as a cultural center. (See my article <a href="http://banilsson.blogspot.com/2023/07/the-money-of-power.html" target="_blank">here</a> for more on that subject.) A popular opera like this one helps call attention to the plight, and may even inspire its audience to pull some of those threatened-by-the-arts politicians out of office. <br /><br />I quoted Sir Simon Rattle’s speech to an LSO audience in the article referenced above; here’s another excerpt that’s all too germane:<br /> <br />“More than 40 years ago, I had an unforgettable conversation with the wonderful and much missed stage and opera director, Sir Peter Hall when we were working together in Glyndebourne. He was, in this time in the Thatcher years, running the National Theatre, and was very much someone who was defending the whole cultural sector.<p></p><p>“We sat and had lunch and I said, ‘Peter, it’s a cheeky question, but it seems like every month the Prime Minister is attacking you from the Commons. So how does that feel?’ He says, ‘Well, to be honest, Simon, it doesn't feel wonderful, but someone has to do it.’<br /><br />“And then Peter looked and did his most charming smile with the most mischievous, twinkle in his eyes, and said, ‘Guess what, it will be your turn next.’”<br /><br />Turns out it’s the turn of all of us: all of us who sit by and allow paranoid, low-intelligence government ministers get away with this kind of thing. Presenting a production as splendid – and as essentially British – as this “Midsummer Night’s Dream” is one method of protest, but the rest of it is up to us.<br /><br /><b>A Midsummer Night’s Dream</b><br />Music by Benjamin Britten<br />Libretto by Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears<br />The London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Dalia Stasevska <br />Directed by Lynn Hockney, based on the 1981 production by Peter Hall<br />The Glyndebourne Festival, July 30</p>B. A. Nilssonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04932818130398280413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133180.post-75108564034831631922023-07-28T13:29:00.006-04:002023-08-09T10:33:29.769-04:00The Money of Power<p>WHENEVER I LAMENT the lack of cultural awareness across the U.S., I point to the support given to the arts in Europe, where it’s generally understood that opera and dance, theater and classical music will never draw enough paying customers to provide a livelihood to anyone who professionally sings or dances or otherwise writes or performs. Every nation needs its cultural identity to be buttressed by the fine arts, as they’re (unfortunately) snootily known, and smart government entities come up with money in support. <br /></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigNnMjAnZ_PkcXB40SWvC34vX1eDSmKwIQUFbFpWyXaCj4UUZJ8Az2DlDiE-UEVRli0OcXtiqbqcwwoGsBlLMkNiPLW8fzVrGXpsZfpK7d8PFOjgq9wHIx6HJS-H_JZN8M5eqyVGchiKbf4j5WiwQy-tI9B6qd4cpbg3uleby_obNlzmJaDs1HCA/s1600/Rattle.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1066" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigNnMjAnZ_PkcXB40SWvC34vX1eDSmKwIQUFbFpWyXaCj4UUZJ8Az2DlDiE-UEVRli0OcXtiqbqcwwoGsBlLMkNiPLW8fzVrGXpsZfpK7d8PFOjgq9wHIx6HJS-H_JZN8M5eqyVGchiKbf4j5WiwQy-tI9B6qd4cpbg3uleby_obNlzmJaDs1HCA/s320/Rattle.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Sir Simon Rattle</i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>If, in the U.S., it splits across party lines, that’s no surprise. Cultural literacy goes hand-in-hand with education, and education encourages liberal thinking. That’s why so many conservatives weaponize their lack of smarts and attack the institutions and traditions of education. Thus the book-bannings, the arts-money cuts, the general hostility toward universities. When Republicans seize enough power in Washington, DC, these days, one of their first targets is the National Endowment for the Arts, whose already minuscule budget is dwarfed by such precious commodities as defense spending. But Republicans are fighting for their own survival. The smarter you are, they understand on some smart-ass level, the more likely it is you’ll vote for someone else.<span></span><p></p><a name='more'></a>And now the U.K. has been hit. Under Boris Johnson, himself an administrative disaster, a Conservative MP named Nadine Dorries was installed as Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. Proving her mettle as disaster-in-waiting, last year she helped engineer £50 million in cuts to London-area arts organizations through Arts Council England (ACE). The £12.8 million that the English National Opera was expecting, for example, went to zero. The company was urged to move out of London instead. The excuse given for the draconian cuts is that the arts need to decentralize, that London gets too much money – and that’s not an unsound argument. But you don’t modify such things with a guillotine. What’s needed is not cuts to the arts in London but more money given to organizations throughout the rest of the country.<br /><br />Those in power, however, not only are ignorant about the arts – hey, Nadine, how does Beethoven’s Seventh begin? – but also don’t understand what makes up an artistic entity’s community – those not directly employed by a company but who rely on the company for income. And then there’s the fact that many, if not most, of those directly involved – the performers, the designers, the composers, the painters, you name it – put down roots that need to be respected. The English National Opera was supposed to consider moving to Manchester, for which it would then receive £17m over three years.<br /><br />Playing what’s now a typical game of follow-the-conservative-leader, the BBC decided to slash salaries at three of its orchestras – the BBC Philharmonic, BBC Concert Orchestra, and BBC Symphony – and completely eliminate the BBC Singers. <br /><br />It’s probably difficult for the American classical-music community to appreciate just how important choral music is to the British concert scene, because American schoolkids don’t have access to anything like the music education that perseveres, even if it’s hanging by its fingernails, in UK schools. And American schoolkids grow up with no knowledge of any music beyond what corporate-music zillionaires want them to hear.<br /><br />The Glyndebourne Festival, which is England’s most prestigious opera presenter, enjoys a handsome amount of private support, which is why it can strongly suggest that gentlemen arrive tuxedo-clad – but this is also an entity with a keen educational agenda, taking opera productions, workshops, chamber-music concerts and much more to hundreds of children throughout their country. The touring costs already were heavily subsidized by the company, but with its ACE award cut in half to £800,000, and costs continuing to rise, the tours have been canceled. <br /><br />So this ham-handed attempt at decentralization will result instead in a general cultural starvation.<br /><br />There has been outrage, of course, even if arts-related fulminations don’t typically merit front-page coverage. One of the most stirring rebuttals came from Sir Simon Rattle, a much-beloved conductor already bruised by the lunacy of Brexit. He made a speech at a London Symphony Orchestra concert in April, which I excerpt below:<br /><br />“It's clear we are facing a long-term fight for existence and we cannot just quietly acquiesce to the dismantling or dismembering of so many important companies. ... But none of this is a force majeure. It is rooted in political choices. ... And as other political decisions affect music in schools and then music colleges, the vital organic pipeline that feeds our music will start to run dry.<br /><br />“But there's a kind of dishonesty at the heart of many of the decisions. George Orwell will recognize the language: ‘Refresh the administration’ and ‘reimagine the art form.’ They are two bits of ‘newspeak’ which mean the opposite of the actual words, but you can all choose your own personal idiocies.<br /><br />“If you actually want opera to be experienced in more parts of the country, it is ludicrous to cut the grants of the companies who do exactly that. This should not need explaining. ... And by the way, without an orchestra or chorus you no longer have an opera company - these are not things that can just be reassembled later, or bought in from Ikea.<br /><br />“So many of the problems are rooted in a political ignorance of what this art form entails, and more worryingly, there seems to be a stubborn pride in the ignorance.”<br /><br />The speech had some positive effect. Shortly afterward, ACE revised its proposed budget for the English National Opera that will allow it to continue at its London base, without abandoning its obsession with moving the company north by 2029 – an area already served by Opera North.<br /> <br />Arts Council England has now backtracked on the plans that were condemned by the classical music community, instead promising English National Opera (ENO) the same funding it would have received prior to the controversial cuts, and delaying any move outside London until 2029.<br /><br />And if you’re seeking some Newspeak, let’s listen to ACE chairman Sir Nicholas Serota, who said: “The extended timeline for their transition to a new main base will enable the ENO to undertake this complex move and to develop partnerships in the new city. The Arts Council’s support for opera is unwavering.”<br /><br />Which still leaves the Welsh National Opera, the Royal Opera House, and Glyndebourne, among others, gasping for financial breath. <br /><br />Stephen Langridge, Glyndebourne’s artistic director, reflected that the current season, as planned, <br />“would have seen hundreds of children singing with the Glyndebourne Chorus, workshops in care homes and chamber music recitals in universities. Sadly, this autumn we will not be able to offer these extraordinary opera experiences so widely across England.”<br /><br />We’ve been dealing with parallel problems stateside for many decades. When former B-movie actor Ronald Reagan was placed into the White House, he immediately tried to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts, believing (in the words of his chief hatchet-man, David Stockman, that “(it) went too far, and ... would be easy to defeat.” Smarter people prevailed and preserved the organization, but it continues to be an ideological target for those with political power and limited intelligence. In 1995, for instance, house speaker Newt Gingrich insisted that the NEA be eliminated, and he threw in the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting as well. All of them survived, but it’s an ongoing struggle.<br /><br />There’s something perversely satisfying about seeing the arts perceived by the high-income lowbrows as a threat. It means the arts are working. It means the books they’re trying to ban are speaking to those who will be inspired by them. It means that even the most outrageous of performance-arts installations will expand the thinking of those looking to do what the arts are supposed to do: reinterpret who we are in fresh, unexpected perspectives. And it means that we’ll continue to be informed by the passions of that most passionate of the arts, the opera. That’s me you’ll see in a “La traviata” seat, weeping the tears I’m too self-conscious to shed at home.<br /><br /><br /><p></p>B. A. Nilssonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04932818130398280413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133180.post-67775853698985818532023-07-21T18:57:00.002-04:002023-08-04T10:00:55.280-04:00You Don’t Say!<p>I DISLIKE speaking with strangers. In fact, I resist speaking with almost anyone, but circumstances rarely allow such silence. Pandemic isolation was glorious, as most of my conversations were conducted through electronic means and allowed time to reflect and time to answer or ignore. Two problems typically arise: I have no wish to engage in a conversation about trivialities – weather conditions, sports scores, Presidential indictments – and, when you get right down to it, I usually have nothing worthwhile to say.<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTzJ8y00wGcBYgjwgVmDrxgcAbAPru66NK7u8ZMjuu5nJa8EZxIXrU_ye7lL973ztzq1Hi8RRahUnvu8ptDpb4vDSVNCE3xxJa2LnR7bGECI8tWFGjae2J4FQCfxovQ2SPeAZVYeTBbpV7kpf-HuEuKqrw0XDWotCQUktX55zo_44i_1jhQ5tv9A/s3000/Wilde.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2108" data-original-width="3000" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTzJ8y00wGcBYgjwgVmDrxgcAbAPru66NK7u8ZMjuu5nJa8EZxIXrU_ye7lL973ztzq1Hi8RRahUnvu8ptDpb4vDSVNCE3xxJa2LnR7bGECI8tWFGjae2J4FQCfxovQ2SPeAZVYeTBbpV7kpf-HuEuKqrw0XDWotCQUktX55zo_44i_1jhQ5tv9A/s320/Wilde.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>I recently wrote and performed a one-man show as Sydney Greenstreet, the brilliant stage actor who made his movie debut in 1941 in “The Maltese Falcon” and had eight more years of film stardom. Many of the lines I put into his mouth resonate deeply with me. For example: “At heart, I am a bashful man. I approach social gatherings with trepidation. My thoughts, my emotions, are wont to gallop into untoward areas. To speak without forethought brings the risk of betraying myself.”<br /><br />In the company of my wife, with whom I’ve lived for forty years, I have a chatty buffer. She loves to talk. She offers herself, fully and honestly, to friend and stranger alike. Where some are tongue-loosened only after a couple of potent cocktails, she’ll be the life of the party after only a single cup of tea. This gives me the chance to fade into the background, to hide in an armchair and silently study the fireplace.<span><a name='more'></a></span><br /><br />But I don’t. The panic that sets in when others are nigh causes my suprarenal glands to squirt enough adrenalin into my system to cause my brain to whirr and my wit, such as it is, to flourish. I go into Performance Mode, as I think of it. I am a tuxedo-clad <i>flâneur</i>, pince-nez gleaming, cigarette burning in its holder. Not quite out of Oscar Wilde, but certainly at home in a Coward. The brain is now seething, ready to fire off the fancy comeback. The <i>mot juste.</i> The devastating <i>riposte</i>.<br /><br />As when I encountered a friend at a gathering and was forced to be first with the greeting. “How are you?” I asked. She paused, world-wearily taking in the surroundings. “I am,” she replied. “Therefore I think.”<br /><br />In no time at all, I told her, “Sounds like you’re putting Descartes before the horse.” <br /><br />Where did that come from? I have no idea. A word-association mechanism pinwheels in my cerebrum and issues such statements autonomically. As when I served as Best Man at a wedding many years ago, the union of a pair of musician friends held at a posh Long Island estate. I was given a place on the receiving line and there performed the mindless function of offering a quick hello to people I didn’t know before urging them along to the groom’s father, next in line, whose name I offered as I indicated that the person in front of me should keep moving.<br /><br />One woman would have none of that. She planted herself before me and eyeballed me with suspicion. I didn’t know her, but I knew who she was: a well-placed, high-powered artists’ manager who was working to advance the bride’s career. Not someone with whom I should at all engage. And yet, when she eventually declared, “You must be on the groom’s side!,” I couldn’t stop myself. I didn’t even think before replying, “Actually, I’m rooting for them both.”<br /><br />The glare she gave me indicated that she was not one who tolerated being on the receiving end of jokes – after all, this wasn’t the purpose of this receiving line – although it did no damage to the bride’s performing schedule, who has long since achieved well-deserved international fame.<br /><br />It would seem, then, that pushing past my glossophobia results only in excellent jokes. Not true. I also make some pretty terrible ones, and those emerge far more often than the good ones. But the stuff that lies between, what you might term “normal” conversation, eludes me. I fear I have nothing to contribute. Facts that truly are factual need no enhancement from me; pseudo-facts typically are supported by conspiracy-theory platitudes that defy scrutiny; speculation is too often rooted in fear. And the weather is a cross between fact and speculation, which is exhausting to follow<br /><br />So I stick to being the smartass in the room. A smartass with self-discipline, resisting joke after joke until one that stands a chance of being funny presents itself. I draw from three major styles. First is the double-meaning joke, which doesn’t ends up being clean now and then. (Not that I mind dirty – heaven forbid! – but that’s a topic unto itself.) <br /><br />For example: I’m hosting a party at my house. There’s a significant number of guests. My wife and I have labored to present a nice meal, and we’re excitedly anticipating reactions. So when an imperiously health-conscious friend of ours enters, my wife and I exchange a cautionary look. “She’s going to make trouble,” I whisper to my wife. “Be nice,” are the instructions in response. Sure enough, this too-thin, too-upright citizen strides to the food table, turns to me and says, “Are there any nuts in here?”<br /><br />I indicate the rest of the guests with a sweep of the hand. “Just look around you,” I say calmly, gliding away to avoid recrimination. <br /><br />Second is the ambiguous assumption joke, more easily exemplified than explained. This could occur when I’m out with a friend. Drinking. On the prowl. Looking for distaff companionship, which already places this in an antediluvian era. “Don’t you think you’ve been a complete failure?” my friend asks as we stagger out of the sixth or seventh bar. “Not at all,” is my reply. “The night is young!”<br /><br />Finally, the put-down. In this case, a subset of the double-meaning joke, as above, but with a more obvious thrust. It’s a response to unwarranted criticism, particularly when proffered in public, more particularly still in a tone of voice dripping with an assumption of superior knowledge.<br /><br />You’re never more vulnerable to this kind of comment than when wheeling a toddler through a public space like a shopping mall. The scene: a bench near the food court. The cast: myself as a newish dad, my young daughter, and an elderly woman unable to find any place else to sit. At rise: I am sharing a so-called meal consisting of fried bits of chicken, french fries, and a milkshake. Because of my daughter’s high-energy dining style, she is adorned with food spatters. This cuisine is designed to be addictive, and my three-year-old is a junkie. She grabs at the morsels of chicken, forcing them to share mouth-space with the fries that seem to perpetually occupy that cavern, then floods it with a thick layer of white vanilla-flavored sludge. Soon enough the milkshake supply is exhausted, as signified by the sucking, grinding noise she achieves with the straw.<br /><br />My daughter glowers at me and says, “Get another! Get another one!” as she thrusts the cup at me. “Calm down,” I tell her. “I’ll get you one.”<br /><br />This is when the elderly lady rises turns on me an expression of contempt. Contempt laced with superiority, with the ineffable, incurable mouth-sneer of one whose personal space has been severely violated. She clutches a carpetbag to her midriff, peers over a pair of thick eyeglasses and declares, “That child is spoiled!”<br /><br />I give her a warm, understanding smile and reply, “They all smell that way at her age.” Then put her back in her stroller as we prepare to find another milkshake.<br /><p></p>B. A. Nilssonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04932818130398280413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133180.post-37343843482604423532023-07-19T13:12:00.003-04:002023-07-19T16:22:15.113-04:00Star-Crossed<p>THE WORLD OF OPERA taught us that when a couple falls into a duet, they are in some way bonding. Usually it’s love. Sometimes it’s hate. It’s a powerful device that now informs all manner of musical theater. But when you’re looking for powerful examples of the power of duet, go to Charles Gounod. He packed four of them in his “<i>Roméo et Juliette</i>.”<br /></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2UPBtJ_iXDG1OPgZoiutsNIy7W2rXKhYLY_kaVavrQHUxjvXI3YjS7mWYL7eTOVV1ek6x5Cv9R8l0UoFOBpyRUPBS5HUUr7_8D5eH3nZW-ecIm33VIL-z9oRuN2bfPIP6-UGWFxdRLKhycOAb6FORlK0eEiFnnn-VmClsZsGFt0aiO2CjfA_LxA/s5120/Glimmerglass%20R&J-1.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3415" data-original-width="5120" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2UPBtJ_iXDG1OPgZoiutsNIy7W2rXKhYLY_kaVavrQHUxjvXI3YjS7mWYL7eTOVV1ek6x5Cv9R8l0UoFOBpyRUPBS5HUUr7_8D5eH3nZW-ecIm33VIL-z9oRuN2bfPIP6-UGWFxdRLKhycOAb6FORlK0eEiFnnn-VmClsZsGFt0aiO2CjfA_LxA/s320/Glimmerglass%20R&J-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Duke Kim and Magdalena Kuźma <br />Photo: Evan Zimmerman/<br />The Glimmerglass Festival</i></td></tr></tbody></table>He was driven by desperation. Gounod’s “Faust” was a huge success, but he followed it with three flops. “<i>Roméo et Juliette</i>,” which premiered in 1867, turned it all around for him, and when you hear these duets in the current Glimmerglass Festival production, you’ll be just as enthusiastic as those Théâtre Lyrique audiences were in Paris way back then.<br /><br />You need authoritative voices that convey this sudden, time-stopping passion, and that first duet, which begins with Romeo sighing about his “adorable angel,” is something of a warm-up piece. The couple is just getting to know one another, as yet unaware that their families are caught in that wearisome feud. Duke Kim and Magdalena Kuźma engage in a childlike back-and-forth. We’ve already heard each of their voices in solo spots, but it’s here, as their voices twine and meld, that we are treated to the richness of a pair of voices – their voices – in harmony. A different approach is required of the singers, each of whom must tune in to the other to make the blend become something approaching a single voice without losing individual identity.<span></span><p></p><a name='more'></a>Their voices are blended, but their characters don’t fully surrender to this love-match until duet number two, “<i>Ô nuit divine</i>.” It’s the balcony scene. As the lovers grow closer, so too do their voices. Kuźma and Kim share a youthful freshness in their voices, which quickly grows into something more triumphant and frantic in duet three, as they awaken from their singular night of passion and contemplate the approaching dawn. Romeo has been ordered into exile, so the lark would signal his departure ... but Juliet assures him it’s only the nightingale he hears. (This avian emphasis also is realized in the opera’s opening party scene, where costume designer Loren Shaw has Juliet dressed as a bluebird.)<br /><br />Their harmony was close in the bedroom scene, but their final duet, at Juliet’s tomb, has their grief sending them into unison. Unlike Shakespeare’s more dreadful finale, Juliet awakens in time to sing with her dying beloved, and it tears your heart out, even though you knew this was coming. <br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZknXUBtTWWpH58Fs9ILASJcm61udUyKhXnO_YW1lozCZe59sTFK-Y6d5-0Mzmi30q1Edjvs7QjNRUQ6rHm3ECt2Rdjfks79Oun09GkPdRiQpfayoNqp_dQt806yUNY0pLayE1TxFdkrJJXop-ActiPQgOXbQbzWNmoRSM1vLhOSbqjcHmizg1vw/s3840/Glimmerglass%20R&J-5.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2562" data-original-width="3840" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZknXUBtTWWpH58Fs9ILASJcm61udUyKhXnO_YW1lozCZe59sTFK-Y6d5-0Mzmi30q1Edjvs7QjNRUQ6rHm3ECt2Rdjfks79Oun09GkPdRiQpfayoNqp_dQt806yUNY0pLayE1TxFdkrJJXop-ActiPQgOXbQbzWNmoRSM1vLhOSbqjcHmizg1vw/s320/Glimmerglass%20R&J-5.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Hayden Smith and Oliver Zeroauli<br />Photo: Evan Zimmerman/<br />The Glimmerglass Festival</i></td></tr></tbody></table>Director Simon Godwin is artistic director of the Washington DC-based Shakespeare Theatre Company; he has been associate director of the National Theatre of London and many other companies, but this is his first time directing an opera. He chose to set this production in a contemporary time, reflected in costumes that reflected the variety of what we now wear – especially in the masquerade ball that opens the opera.<br /><br />Gounod gives us a prologue very reminiscent in manner of the one Berlioz wrote a quarter-century earlier for his choral symphony on the same topic – but there’s otherwise no comparing the two. Gounod was a true grand opera composer. Berlioz (whose music I adore) was out of his mind.<br /><br />We see Tybalt (Hayden Smith) at the top of the show and the top of the stage, appropriately menacing in a death’s-head costume with skeletal hands, establishing from the start the doomed nature of our protagonists and their families. He and his buddy Paris (Jonathan Patton) were frat-boy bullies, their angry sense of place jarred by the arrival of some Montagues – particularly Olivier Zerouali as Mercutio. It’s worth noting that the three are members of the Festival’s Young Artists program, offering singers generally indistinguishable from the Guest Artists. And Zerouali made the most of his scene-stealing Queen Mab aria.<br /><br />Another brilliant moment goes to Stephano, Romeo’s page, created for the opera and typically given to a mezzo. We’re in Scene Two of Act Three (just after intermission), and Lisa Marie Rogali sang and danced “<i>Que fais-tu</i>,” egging on the nearby Capulets, with terrific energy and excellent dance moves (thank choreographer Jonathan Goddard). <br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpN6SyZAbi32ShQlhrr9HF_5y0MXzizqBqRXVJYS2omfy1LQ-BYU0PqDnHgrImSsBFDIioZu_TQI-yNjpXBE2XwOCHh6O_p0U1ls_MfUUODq7C6mT0dSVTjd1DSU2EZVf3w43F3IVj2_Dp3iXZQlEmKm2FtelcKVkjiDuqWlUm5rkq9hq0UC5xyw/s5120/Glimmerglass%20R&J-2.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3415" data-original-width="5120" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpN6SyZAbi32ShQlhrr9HF_5y0MXzizqBqRXVJYS2omfy1LQ-BYU0PqDnHgrImSsBFDIioZu_TQI-yNjpXBE2XwOCHh6O_p0U1ls_MfUUODq7C6mT0dSVTjd1DSU2EZVf3w43F3IVj2_Dp3iXZQlEmKm2FtelcKVkjiDuqWlUm5rkq9hq0UC5xyw/s320/Glimmerglass%20R&J-2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Magdalena Kuźma, Stefano de Peppo, <br />and Meredith Arwady; Photo: Evan <br />Zimmerman/The Glimmerglass Festival</i></td></tr></tbody></table>Other standouts in the cast are Meredith Arwady – who is so terrific in the concurrent “Candide” – as Gertrude, Juliet’s nurse, a lively presence whenever she’s onstage, but also a key part of such ensemble work as the quartet “<i>Ô pur bonheur!</i>,” sung after the titular couple are married by Friar Laurence (Sergio Martinez, himself another key player). And Stefano de Peppo is here as Count Capulet, showing his skill at drama as easily as he showed his comedic chops in the concurrent “<i>La bohème</i>.” <br /><br />Gounod’s skill goes beyond those duets, of course, skillfully illuminating an ever-shifting undercurrent of emotion. There’s the gaiety of the opening-scene party that lapses into fury as the interlopers are discovered; there’s the fight scene in Act Three, where the sparring and eventual deaths of Mercutio and Tybalt are realized as much in the music as in what’s sung. <br /><br />There are solos too, of course. Romeo’s “<i>Ah! lève-toi, soleil!</i>” was stunningly sung by Kim, and, of course, there’s Juliet’s waltz, “<i>Je veux vivre</i>,” in which Kuźma effectively shaded her joy with some foreboding.<br /><br />Dan Soule’s set consisted of some large, ornate pieces that easily shifted to reconfigure the setting, and Robert Wierzel’s lighting helped adapt each look of the stage to the scene’s emotional pitch, sending us from the warm joy of Friar Laurence’s cell to the starkness of the tomb with a few shifts of color. <br /><br />As well as you think you know the play, this opera elucidates the wonder of youthful love and the futility of loving in the face of intractable differences. And this production fully realizes everything the opera has to offer. This production runs through August 19. More info at <a href="http://glimmerglass.org">glimmerglass.org</a>.<br /><br /><b>Roméo et Juliette</b><br />Music by Charles Gounod<br />Libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré<br />Conducted by Joseph Colaneri<br />Directed by Simon Godwin<br />The Glimmerglass Festival, July 17<p></p>B. A. Nilssonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04932818130398280413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133180.post-62247392978050281772023-07-13T22:44:00.006-04:002023-07-13T22:45:14.320-04:00The Beasts of All Possible Worlds<p>THE EXPERIENCE OF SEEING Leonard Bernstein’s “Candide” has changed in recent years. I’ve seen a variety of productions – that variety aided by the fact that this opera, or show, or whatever category-defying label you wish to give it has gone through a dizzying variety of iterations during its 67 years of existence. (It’s got to be the only piece that lists both Dorothy Parker and Stephen Sondheim as lyricists.)<br /></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHlMvBxx6sOV6CAR9_58--lEtszd5v-axg4c2mf9fT0o-Wm7hD2mntkaoIdz96GVt7oCMIDKx41vq2s86MKPwmLKgm7Y6b_zMCMLE3KMxG14kVZwPcV8EwzNBr8occbr8YE9-3cOW0e3IepEDG26MmWRpoaHO-SfL3mQZ2HlbleGmmnvVNkPWWIg/s1380/Candide-1.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="930" data-original-width="1380" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHlMvBxx6sOV6CAR9_58--lEtszd5v-axg4c2mf9fT0o-Wm7hD2mntkaoIdz96GVt7oCMIDKx41vq2s86MKPwmLKgm7Y6b_zMCMLE3KMxG14kVZwPcV8EwzNBr8occbr8YE9-3cOW0e3IepEDG26MmWRpoaHO-SfL3mQZ2HlbleGmmnvVNkPWWIg/s320/Candide-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Brian Vu and Katrina Galka<br />Photo courtesy the Glimmerglass Festival</i></td></tr></tbody></table>At its heart, of course, is Voltaire’s timeless, digressive tale of a good-natured naïf whose pursuit of love and a promised happiness takes him across a couple of continents and through a succession of violent conflicts, laced with improbabilities and coincidences that would make Baron Munchausen blush. <br /><br />What’s happened recently, however, is that world events have caught up with the piece. What may have seemed like overblown satire in Voltaire’s time (indeed, he got himself kicked out of both France and Germany at various times) doesn’t seem so incredible any more.<br /><br />So here’s Candide, gormless but game, a-burst with the optimism he’s learned from his tutor, Dr. Pangloss, and conceiving a passion for the lovely Cunegonde. All that stands in the way of this romance is the matter of birth. She’s an aristocrat; he’s a bastard. Ejected from the castle Schloss Thunder-ten-Tronck in Westphalia, he wanders through a succession of horrors while clinging to an eroding optimism. Tenor Brian Vu informs this role with a wide-eyed, gung-ho spirit. <span></span><p></p><a name='more'></a>True to that spirit, his numbers tend to be meditative, even mournful (“It Must Be So,” e.g.), unless he’s in a duet or ensemble – and his duets with Cunegonde (“O, Happy We,” “You Were Dead, You Know”) sparkle. That’s also because he has a great partner for those in soprano Katrina Galka. She has the big, big number of the piece, “Glitter and Be Gay,” which is difficult enough without costume and movement involved, but Galka is the first soprano I’ve seen who acted the song as brilliantly as she sang it. In other words, she inhabited it. <br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1eCYfCbH1E_1XtZ4sQP9DgSREIGjHabsxpcs3jEi05d-1nGfO9zTE5j0BJwxXYskZVqh1IZhrbGeySpDMef32wiheLJc282u87Ybxg3SeUeEQt4dKoGKTnwTI1tQ_jfs4sAm8yyCkef0zjSyIuvZigPNcip4rswINbfD1R8V7laJY75U8S9Rngg/s1419/Candide-2.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="937" data-original-width="1419" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1eCYfCbH1E_1XtZ4sQP9DgSREIGjHabsxpcs3jEi05d-1nGfO9zTE5j0BJwxXYskZVqh1IZhrbGeySpDMef32wiheLJc282u87Ybxg3SeUeEQt4dKoGKTnwTI1tQ_jfs4sAm8yyCkef0zjSyIuvZigPNcip4rswINbfD1R8V7laJY75U8S9Rngg/s320/Candide-2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Bradley Dean and Ensemble<br />Photo courtesy the Glimmerglass Festival</i></td></tr></tbody></table>This is a revival of a production that premiered at the Festival in 2015, directed by previous artistic director Francesca Zambello. She has a talent for exploring the depths of characterization offered by an opera – even when there aren’t many depths – and her “Candide” mixes the distinctive personalities of the principals with a chorus deployed to suit the particular requirements of a scene, whether it be bloodthirsty Inquisition fans or placid El Dorado denizens. The staging becomes part of the show’s propulsiveness, and was here recreated by Eric Sean Fogel.<br /><br />Music is another part – the famous overture lets you know that right away, and, as he did in 2015, conductor Joseph Colaneri and his virtuoso orchestra explore all the nuance and charm of Bernstein’s bubbliest score.<br /><br />Acting is another part, and the Festival shrewdly nabbed Bradley Dean for the dual role of Dr. Pangloss and Voltaire. His Broadway credits include everything from “A Little Night Music” to “Spamalot” with, of course, some “Phantom” thrown in, and the experience shows in the easygoing manner in which he switches between characters – keeping in mind that Pangloss himself undergoes a series of surprising transformations, always justifying his rotten circumstances with a cry of “It’s all for the best.” Dean has a excellent Broadway voice, which is only to say that he readily informs his songs with acting values that horrify the 57th-Street voice teachers but are vital to the success of this score.<br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuldXfdlwaWcOsAva066-NEFNPYSD1BoVgVkmGibsN1B39h2DY1l9-VVLyrDFeO9jgQMhiD6irzpjQjZTfdX_kpF1s49zYTi8xcBzTNBGG3tZTAuhPkb2SuqeenO4UM6yoPSHhMRLDOSUi1LezvGAnHKRth0QLfI2g-fQKeN3RlRF0f7NRhreIOQ/s1340/Candide-3.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="930" data-original-width="1340" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuldXfdlwaWcOsAva066-NEFNPYSD1BoVgVkmGibsN1B39h2DY1l9-VVLyrDFeO9jgQMhiD6irzpjQjZTfdX_kpF1s49zYTi8xcBzTNBGG3tZTAuhPkb2SuqeenO4UM6yoPSHhMRLDOSUi1LezvGAnHKRth0QLfI2g-fQKeN3RlRF0f7NRhreIOQ/s320/Candide-3.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Brian Vu and Ensemble<br />Photo courtesy the Glimmerglass Festival</i></td></tr></tbody></table>Next to “Glitter,” the number most likely to steal the show is “I Am Easily Assimilated,” for which Bernstein wrote the witty lyrics. Entrusted here to contralto Meredith Arwady, it was the show-stopper it’s meant to be. It’s easy to oversell the piece, but Arwady kept her business in character and still brought down the house.<br /><br />Everyone in the cast was outstanding – how often does that happen? – but let’s give special praise to Jonathan Patton in the dual role of Martin and James, Ryan Johnson as the merciless Grand Inquisitor (but is there any other kind?) and Jonathan Pierce Rhodes in the speaking role of Cacambo. <br /><br />“Candide” has one of the more hopeful – and vocally stirring – finales that you’ll ever hear, especially with so much adjacent bloodshed. And we need that hope right now. We continue to dot the globe with imperialist wars, even as we see a brutal political schism in our own country. A country where we’re also witnessing racial, ethnic, and sexual-preference persecution the like of which has been dormant for years. And lampooning the Inquisition used to seem almost quaint, but our current crop of religious fanatics has grown even more fantastically fanatical as they infiltrate everything from school boards to congressional entities. Which is to say that “Candide” should serve as a dual inspiration: Not only should we tend our gardens, but we need to get out there and vote.<br /><br />“Candide” runs through August 20. More info: <a href="http://glimmerglass.org">glimmerglass.org</a>.<br /><i><br />Candide</i><br />Music by Leonard Bernstein<br />Book by Hugh Wheeler<br />Lyrics by Richard Wilbur, Stephen Sondheim, John La Touche, Leonard Bernstein, and others.<br />Conducted by Joseph Colaneri<br />Directed by Francesca Zambello and Eric Sean Fogel<br />The Glimmerglass Festival, July 10<br /><br /><p></p>B. A. Nilssonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04932818130398280413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133180.post-44381675243568328502023-07-12T21:05:00.004-04:002023-07-13T19:23:47.753-04:00Soft Be Her Tears<p>EVERYTHING THAT MAKES Puccini’s 1896 <i>La bohème</i> one of the opera-loving world’s all-time favorites is on display in the current Glimmerglass Festival production. Killer arias sung by incredibly skilled artists; ensemble pieces so stirring that your body will spontaneously increase its white-blood-cell count; stage movement and choreography that spurs the pacing when needed and enhances the poignancy when that’s needed, too. <br /></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOXASjH6Y-tAjxA2HshaAx7zPQ91HSlxUhB-qzZV4jEu-KW_oQz7LZC9fwCYC7hLSkFjgCP2V-ogZMdB_SthadvUDcspkH9PaGvs7-UgIr9pMGf-kmkmLcRj_H_ioKhogiuV5ZRTfHfCFX0XMOaQWiMrZWDlelgFXoe8VjNlaeU_XMUBlAxglzyg/s1320/Boheme-1.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="930" data-original-width="1320" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOXASjH6Y-tAjxA2HshaAx7zPQ91HSlxUhB-qzZV4jEu-KW_oQz7LZC9fwCYC7hLSkFjgCP2V-ogZMdB_SthadvUDcspkH9PaGvs7-UgIr9pMGf-kmkmLcRj_H_ioKhogiuV5ZRTfHfCFX0XMOaQWiMrZWDlelgFXoe8VjNlaeU_XMUBlAxglzyg/s320/Boheme-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Joshua Blue and Teresa Perrotta<br />Photo courtesy The Glimmerglass Festival</i></td></tr></tbody></table>It goes without saying that the music has its most fervent champion in the Glimmerglass orchestra, but I’m saying it anyway because it bears repeating for the sheer fun of repeating it. Puccini’s score sweeps with romantic gestures galore, of course, but there’s also much within it that begs for nuance and shading, and conductor Nader Abbassi not only showed a thorough understanding of the score’s demands but also the deft ability to support both the singer and the song.<br /><br />But what’s happening, as you sit in the darkened theater and let the experience draw you in, is a confluence of these elements that uses your eyes and ears as entryways to your tear ducts. Or, to put it less cutely, as a direct avenue to your emotions. Puccini masterfully wields the tools that result in expert manipulation. Prepare to be manipulated.<span></span><p></p><a name='more'></a>At the top of Act One we see a quartet of dirt-poor loft-dwellers. They’re denizens of the starving-artists class of 1830s Paris, each pursuing a different art. Rodolfo is a poet. As sung by tenor Joshua Blue, he is affable but little overshadowed by painter Marcello (baritone Darren Drone), whose big voice underscores Marcello’s habit of doing things in a big way. The self-effacing Rodolfo offers the pages of his new play to the fire to create some warmth. Although Colline, a philosopher (baritone Nan Wang, one of this year’s Young Artist performers) failed to pawn his books, the musician of the group, Schaunard (baritone Justin Burgess, another Young Artist), brings firewood and food and extra cash thanks to an absurd job he just finished.<br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQbS88F-aZITSPENDtki1o03PbiG_IZvZTdGsoKDQzjzRwGe_gyOeqL2cqUTUFbvrEQzR6d_LN3f_-_K4Vpt1nPHETDamoyeyfit-7zZ7qHgAbVzuhM4xpz3N_x679fYHpd_6LUceIlNYtbLFiT0sjDcT3NkLjrLC53DplB4SSoEiFwYZaRZV8Yg/s1383/Boheme-2.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="935" data-original-width="1383" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQbS88F-aZITSPENDtki1o03PbiG_IZvZTdGsoKDQzjzRwGe_gyOeqL2cqUTUFbvrEQzR6d_LN3f_-_K4Vpt1nPHETDamoyeyfit-7zZ7qHgAbVzuhM4xpz3N_x679fYHpd_6LUceIlNYtbLFiT0sjDcT3NkLjrLC53DplB4SSoEiFwYZaRZV8Yg/s320/Boheme-2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Photo courtesy The Glimmerglass Festival</i></td></tr></tbody></table>All of which is to note that this act swirls in an engaging series of incidents that reveal four memorable characters, particularly when they work together to rid themselves of a pesky landlord (bass-baritone Stefano de Peppo, who is delightful). And then, as we’re savoring all this, the real magic begins. Rodolfo is left alone. His neighbor Mimi appears. He sings “<i>Che gelida manina</i>,” commenting on her cold hands while telling her his story. It’s a big piece, and Blue sang it with marvelous insight and skill. Yet his aria gets topped when she sings “S<i>ì, mi chiamano Mimì</i>,” the emotional heart of this act. Soprano Teresa Perrotta made it seem effortless at first, but the aria builds and wherever the music went, her voice went, too. This is Puccini’s genius, surprising us with such beautifully written, musically intricate numbers – and immediately following them with another show piece, the duet “<i>O soave fanciulla</i>.” Were I drawn into a passionate duet like that a mere few minutes after meeting someone, you can bet I’d be in love. It’s opera land, and we buy it. <br /><br />Director Loren Meeker’s staging in the busy first part of the act is effective to the point of transparency, which is to say that it doesn’t feel directed. And that’s a good thing. Likewise, the solos and duet are almost left to themselves, also good. That’s where it becomes all about the voices, and these are voices worth that level of attention.<br /><br />Choreographer Eric Sean Fogel also deserves praise, especially for his work during the second act, when the stage crowds with street vendors, children, and slumming Parisians. When the charismatic toy-seller Parpignol appears (engagingly sung by Zachary Riox), dance becomes a carnival of effective movement. <br /><br />We’re in the Latin Quarter, and this is when we meet the comely Musetta (soprano Emilie Kealani, another Young Artist, not that you can easily tell her apart from the headliners). She was Marcello’s squeeze, but now she’s on the arm of the elderly Alcindoro (de Peppo again, all indignation and bluster). Her famous waltz, <i>Quando me'n vo'</i>, is excellently sung and staged. <br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha3uXT11kxANPs3-6GdCpDKJDvK36DuqyoOux4u-s9wksrEBRuQl-me8Tibjx8cWqHXQ1byTeB5pgo7bAukGFKnc6CwaAZxSPVGvYKLIT8LfJ6K5auf-Exn0-cbuSGxgnRQ09Xi0zcw5V1ypBSXFtni8t2PE-OoYQqX0aLWhUPmDjkK7RWm4MtGg/s1315/Boheme-3.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="923" data-original-width="1315" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha3uXT11kxANPs3-6GdCpDKJDvK36DuqyoOux4u-s9wksrEBRuQl-me8Tibjx8cWqHXQ1byTeB5pgo7bAukGFKnc6CwaAZxSPVGvYKLIT8LfJ6K5auf-Exn0-cbuSGxgnRQ09Xi0zcw5V1ypBSXFtni8t2PE-OoYQqX0aLWhUPmDjkK7RWm4MtGg/s320/Boheme-3.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Joshua Blue, Darren Drone, <br />Justin Burgess, and Nan Wang <br />Photo courtesy The Glimmerglass Festival</i></td></tr></tbody></table>This large cast of bystanders took their bow at the end of the act – the only time in which they appear – sending us into the intermission break with a dreadful sense of foreboding. We would see them no more. The stubborn cough from which Mimi suffered ... well, the opera premiered in 1896, a time when popular song and literature demanded that someone beloved had to die<br /><br />The two couples dominate Act Three as Mimi and Rodolfo try to figure out whether to remain together or split, even as Marcello and Musetta pursue a quarrel of their own. Of course Puccini makes a quartet out of it: “<i>Addio dolce svegliare alla mattina!</i>,” setting the stage for Act Four, which is a kind of mirror of the first act. The four artists are together again; the two girlfriends have found wealthy patrons. And then it all unravels. Mimi arrives, escorted by Musetta – but Mimi is at the end of her life. <br /><br />Kevin Depinet’s sets underscore the journey, opening from garret to street and back to garret again as the arc of the story tightens the grip of fate. Where before there were efforts to sell or pawn their goods to get food and fuel, now they’re doing the same to get medicine – giving baritone Wang a showpiece in “<i>Vecchia zimarra</i>,” which he sings to the overcoat he’s about to hock. <br /><br />You knew going into this that is would be an unhappy finish, but there’s a special level of enjoyment we’ve learned from works like this. <i>La bohème</i> is a story of poverty and suffering, but the music and theatricality whisks us far away from any pursuit of social change. The Glimmerglass Festival – reviving and improving on a production last presented seven summers ago – is giving us an unabashedly glorious night (or day) at the opera, one that will set your standard of expectation for Puccini’s masterpiece for all time to come. This production runs through August 19; more info is at <a href="http://Glimmerglass.org">Glimmerglass.org</a>.<br /><br /><i>La bohème </i><br />Music by Giacomo Puccini <br />Libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa<br />Conducted by Nader Abbassi <br />Directed by E. Loren Meeker <br />Glimmerglass Festival, 9 July 2023<p></p>B. A. Nilssonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04932818130398280413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133180.post-49724171158232580162023-06-30T23:05:00.003-04:002023-07-03T23:13:49.723-04:00Party at the Schumanns’ House<p>MUSIC GIVES A SOUL TO A PARTY. Not recorded music; that’s a cop-out which has become all too normalized because we’ve gotten so far away from making our own. I’m talking about putting that piano to use, or hauling out that guitar. Playing chamber music is a rich form of conversation, richer than party chatter. You listen to your fellow musicians in a manner that invites each instrumental voice to inhabit yourself even as you subsume yourself to the music you’re making.<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicHuyBTZLSY4eg64QF2s5-D2UE8eUzjSwgvnhzW6kLZaVUghjhNiZLlGPCRppetRrznWpTtMkGzoVOaC8O4qj_nbo0Tf-AA8i-j-aBPWs4OGqAVelGAiUvaAtP121Bsh1LMOYGby1BbYfcJ17ctmFnkFcsumEuHcx05zPdfzeYattOg1UDyxvFow/s1500/cover%20HMM902509%20-%20Trio%20Dichter%20Th%20otime%20Langlois%20de%20Swarte%20Hanna%20Salzenstein%20Fiona%20Mato%20Samuel%20Hasselhorn%20-%20An.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicHuyBTZLSY4eg64QF2s5-D2UE8eUzjSwgvnhzW6kLZaVUghjhNiZLlGPCRppetRrznWpTtMkGzoVOaC8O4qj_nbo0Tf-AA8i-j-aBPWs4OGqAVelGAiUvaAtP121Bsh1LMOYGby1BbYfcJ17ctmFnkFcsumEuHcx05zPdfzeYattOg1UDyxvFow/s320/cover%20HMM902509%20-%20Trio%20Dichter%20Th%20otime%20Langlois%20de%20Swarte%20Hanna%20Salzenstein%20Fiona%20Mato%20Samuel%20Hasselhorn%20-%20An.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>The Schumanns – Clara and Robert – knew this. True, they were in the business of writing music, but when their musical friends stopped by, pleasant sounds were heard. This is the premise of “An Invitation at the Schumanns,’” a recording by the Paris-based Trio Dichter, an ensemble made up of pianist Fiona Mato, violinist Théotime Langlois de Swarte, and cellist Hanna Salzenstein.<br /><br />As we expiate our sins of a patriarchy that demanded we celebrate Robert Schumann’s works and ignore those of Clara, his wife, we are discovering that she was a dab hand at composition herself, even as she was tasked with raising the children. Two of her works grace the program: the first of her Three Romances, Op 22, for violin and piano, and a Notturno for solo piano drawn from her Soirées musicales, Op. 6. These are beautiful performances – but they also convey the sense of intimacy you’d enjoy in the music salon of an accommodating home.<span><a name='more'></a></span><br /><br />Perhaps it’s the piano. A Bösendorfer grand from 1890 was borrowed from the Museum of Music in Paris. It’s a piano with a big sound, but not the ring-the-rafters sonority of a newer Steinway. It’s big yet intimate, and Mato draws from it a range of passions – tender in that Notturno, sprightly but melancholy in Bach’s Little Prelude in E minor and a G-minor sonata by Scarlatti that lacks a Kirkpatrick number, triumphant in Robert’s Piano Trio No. 2, heard here in its entirety.<br /><br />In fact, it’s the centerpiece of the recording. Of the musical soirée, as I prefer to think of it. It’s the big piece (in this context), a four-movement work written in 1847, showing Schumann’s skill at form and melodic invention. Don’t get too distracted by the gorgeous violin melody that opens the second movement, for example, because you’ll miss the canonic byplay going on behind it from the cello and piano. Violinist de Swarte is heard on a violin built in 1700 by the Neapolitan luthier Gagliano; cellist Salzenstein is playing on a 1734 Guarneri.<br /><br />You’ll hear that cello to excellent effect in two of Robert’s “Funf Stücke im Volkston,” Op. 102. The first, marked “Mit Humor,” isn’t exactly a knee-slapper, but you don’t want these parties to get out of hand. The second, “Langsam,” is all about an endearing melody offered in warm, lush tones.<br /><br />There’s always material should a singer stop by. In this case, baritone Samuel Hasselhorn offers two songs by Robert: the well-known “Widmung” (Dedication), to a text by Rückert, and “Meine Rose,” one of those mock-joyful meditations on sorrowful love. And there are two by Clara-worshiper Brahms: “Schwesterlein” (Little Sister), to a traditional text about uncertain love, and “Wiegenlied” (Lullaby), with a tune so famous you might be inclined to forget it’s by Brahms. Very nice work on Hasselhorn’s part, maintaining the intimate feel of the proceedings while doing full justice to the emotion in these lyrics.<br /><br />Two lesser-known composer-buddies also are honored here: Niels Gade, with an “Elegie” from a set of pieces titled Watercolors, here effectively arranged for violin and piano, and Theodor Kirchner’s “Song without Words,” Op. 83, Book 1, No. 6, for piano trio – evocative enough to foreshadow his rumored affair with Clara after Robert died.<br /><br />One of the couple’s best friends was Mendelssohn, represented by the other large work on the program, his Andante & Allegro assai vivace, Op. 92, for piano four-hands. Mato is joined by Jorge González Buajasan for a triumphant performance.<br /><br />What also makes this recording so effective is the program order of the sixteen pieces heard herein. There’s a special sensitivity in the flow of the pieces, which contrast with one another even as they complement each other in the differing soundscapes offered by the instrumental variety. Overall, it’s a great concept, but it wouldn’t work so well if these weren’t first-rate, very talented performers. I’m hoping for another invitation before long.<br /><b><br />An Invitation at the Schumanns’</b><br />Trio Dichter, with guests Samuel Hasselhorn and Jorge González Buajasan<br />Harmonia mundi<p></p>B. A. Nilssonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04932818130398280413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133180.post-37464082410890825292023-06-23T23:10:00.004-04:002023-07-03T23:11:26.811-04:00Taking Opera Seriously<p><span style="color: #20124d;"><i>From the Vault of the High Cs Dept</i>.: Thirty years ago I reviewed a pair of NYC Opera performances at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, and correctly predicted that the opera company’s residency soon would end. What didn’t end was the horrible amplification inflicted on mainstage events – although I should note that I haven’t been to that venue in many years, discouraged by the number of drunks who began showing up at Philadelphia Orchestra concerts. I assume the management was papering the house, but why pass out tickets at the city’s gin joints?</span><br /><br /><strike> </strike> <br /><br />THE TRUTH ABOUT the New York City Opera's short, pre-summer visits to SPAC is that they’re a satire. A spoof. When a production is done reasonably poorly, as was the case with “Carmen,” it’s a poor joke. When it’s a reasonably good production, like “The Mikado,” the joke gets merely depressing.<br /></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5KPR-nWV1vwwBsnGv7KmV72HP67PXpvgLxT1_ycU5dzboGESP-s1T6s21F2Xo2ztPOQobU99-xMfNXP43nOnrtNDvDuA-nNrtkLuR3Bb2rxY_8NXTg7YJIWCtMu84kGfLVlDqQgyEabK-Avsk8CbmEhOXJ6kNDxTyVuB9mFuIT0CoRnU4yUNhbA/s392/McKee,%20Richard.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="392" data-original-width="337" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5KPR-nWV1vwwBsnGv7KmV72HP67PXpvgLxT1_ycU5dzboGESP-s1T6s21F2Xo2ztPOQobU99-xMfNXP43nOnrtNDvDuA-nNrtkLuR3Bb2rxY_8NXTg7YJIWCtMu84kGfLVlDqQgyEabK-Avsk8CbmEhOXJ6kNDxTyVuB9mFuIT0CoRnU4yUNhbA/s320/McKee,%20Richard.jpg" width="275" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Richard McKee</i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>You could say that the joke is also a riddle: how many people will pay for amphitheater and lawn tickets to see what we call opera until they realize it’s actually not even as good as television? And can we fool them next year, too?<br /><br />Unlike music and dance, which are appreciated viscerally, opera is a theatrical experience that engages a complicated combination of the senses. It requires an immediate involvement from the audience. But New York City Opera, like many another pretentious company, shuns the use of the English translations. And they’ve suckered the audience into accepting distracting supertitles as a compromise.<br /><br />Opera is also a celebration of the human voice, a celebration entirely negated by the fact that even the amphitheater audience hears the singers amplified through a hardly-adequate speaker system (the SPAC techies boast that it’s the same thing they use for rock concerts, man, and management turns an obviously deaf ear to the problem).<span></span><p></p><a name='more'></a>If this isn’t a joke, then SPAC and the NYCO are showing greedy contempt for opera and its audience. Certainly the lackluster “Carmen” did nothing to advance the art. It’s supposed to be a story of smoldering sexuality, but the characters moved and acted so chastely that it might have been set in a convent. Given the interference of the amplification, it’s impossible to judge the voices of the singers. Theresa Cincione, as the innocent Micaela, was a more convincing actress than Robynne Redmon as Carmen – but poor direction and a frightened-looking, inexperienced chorus will impede the worthiest performer.<br /><br />Dennis McNeil played Don Jose as a softie, which sent him dangerously into Zeppo Marx-ishness. Joseph Corteggiano made the most of Escamillo in spite of that and the lack of a resonant lower register – but, again, that might have been due to the lack of a low end in the amplification. How can you tell when the opera is choked by electronics?<br /><br />Because it’s in English and it’s a comedy, “The Mikado” fared better in those horrible surroundings. It also had the advantage of being one of the least busy stagings I’ve seen, which allows the singers to make more of their material.<br /><br />The set was refreshingly bare – some Japanese-style screens were huffed around by the white-clad coolies – and the costumes were colorful without too much exaggeration. <br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKKYKwdVK_HmPf7xSpGauT05YFFGXqty0zB6lasCKeciZe2iSWWt8JnpGHA6A5TG8rExpF20AW1pw3u_ILkhzLzg6b9hhtWDR9LHO7M7sR_PzjbZ6rDl91Okd3V9lpLLJYyGPQVLrB5CM5EKI68LbMZAE5VqEOrH_NpOwNDo2bxsIeBLQrgmkDew/s300/Billings,%20James.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="297" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKKYKwdVK_HmPf7xSpGauT05YFFGXqty0zB6lasCKeciZe2iSWWt8JnpGHA6A5TG8rExpF20AW1pw3u_ILkhzLzg6b9hhtWDR9LHO7M7sR_PzjbZ6rDl91Okd3V9lpLLJYyGPQVLrB5CM5EKI68LbMZAE5VqEOrH_NpOwNDo2bxsIeBLQrgmkDew/s1600/Billings,%20James.jpg" width="297" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>James Billings</i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>Because Gilbert & Sullivan operas depend upon personality, the key to a good production is choosing people who can make the most of the material. James Billings has sung the role of Ko-Ko many times, but still brings to it a freshness that demands attention and gets all the laughs he deserves. Although a G&S character baritone can get away with ignoring much of the music, Billings gives it the care it deserves. Which makes him all the funnier. <br /><br />He was up against a longtime collaborator (and frequent NYCO performer) in Richard McKee, whose scenes as the imperious Mikado were also well sung and well paced – and too few. He and mezzo-soprano Diana Daniele, who sang the blustery Katisha, have big, speaker-rattling tones that suffered from the miking.<br /><br />Michael Hayes and Abbie Furmansky had the ingenue roles of Nanki-Poo and Yum-Yum, giving it all the intensity of a Puccini love-fest, which “The Mikado” doesn’t need.<br /><br />They were also among the many singers making their company debuts during these performances. The contrast between newcomers and veterans was too often apparent.<br /><br />Given the audience draw, the idea of opera at SPAC is a popular one. Because the NYCO’s strength these days is operetta, one option is to concentrate exclusively on lighter fare. Trouble is, the company is so costly that they’d still be placed in that opera-unfriendly amphitheater.<br /><br />A better solution is to get rid of NYCO entirely. Work with the Lake George Opera, which is capable of excellent productions on a much smaller budget and isn’t ashamed to sing them in English, and put the performances in the Spa Little Theater, which would allow the voice to reign unamplified once more.<br /><br /><b>Carmen<br />The Mikado</b><br />New York City Opera,<br />Saratoga Performing Arts Center, June 19-20<br /><br />– <i>Metroland </i>Magazine, 24 June 1993<p></p>B. A. Nilssonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04932818130398280413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133180.post-57920013929901283642023-06-16T21:44:00.003-04:002023-07-02T23:51:30.723-04:00At the Table<p>THERE’S A RECEIVED NOTION that American food is exemplified by the blandest of processed inventions, those rubbery slabs of “American” cheese being the epitome. By altering the standards by which the cuisine is judged – keeping the geography, but extending the history and re-coloring the inhabitants – we discover an impressive variety of foodstuffs and recipes.<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip69HNmxuZo-giTXiQZaTnNXZA8L8Xk38HH5U6ilATtC-kBJn1hYzb6f8Wr9GfOC9YWnQBZ-z2yw5n01df7P5rnz8hlPL1VaaMjUeHTvJkLhdObLKgfD4DdMByUtBQbkZhgmC88W_C5tbMna7p9F_-tFvGXz5iyCAqLOZQWVPu4RCEXIvQmn7E4A/s612/smith.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="612" data-original-width="536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip69HNmxuZo-giTXiQZaTnNXZA8L8Xk38HH5U6ilATtC-kBJn1hYzb6f8Wr9GfOC9YWnQBZ-z2yw5n01df7P5rnz8hlPL1VaaMjUeHTvJkLhdObLKgfD4DdMByUtBQbkZhgmC88W_C5tbMna7p9F_-tFvGXz5iyCAqLOZQWVPu4RCEXIvQmn7E4A/s320/smith.jpg" width="280" /></a></div>Falafel from Michigan? Turns out that there’s an Arab population near Dearborn that started to boom in the early 1900s when Henry Ford told a Yemeni sailor about job opportunities. How about Marionberry Pie from Oregon? That celebrates a berry created at Oregon State University in 1948, a berry that grows in Marion County during the month of July and is too soft to export but snapped up by locals. A recipe from Montana for Bison Meatballs with Huckleberry Sauce celebrates the animal that was slaughtered to near extinction for racist reasons, now enjoying a more boutique presence as the meat is recognized as a healthy beef alternative.<br /><br /><i>Smithsonian American Table</i> travels through time and geography to present a historical narrative that goes way beyond the standard bounds of imperialist tradition. It’s part social narrative, part recipes, interspersed with fascinating illustrations and sidebars. The dividing line for this country’s history is, of course, European colonization, but the book suggests another, later dividing line, noting, “a movement – that of food sovereignty – seeks to reclaim and return to those holistic and culturally significant foodways.” Meaning a return to the cultivation of local produce and well-raised meatstuffs.<span><a name='more'></a></span><br /><br />The history tour divides North America into nine regions defined by geographic factors; thus, the Northeast spreads to Wisconsin and Illinois; the Southwest starts at Arizona and depends into Mexico to the edge of Puebla; the Great Basin surrounds Nevada and Utah and chunks of the surrounding states. And there’s a succinct page of historical culinary analysis about each of those regions. <br /><br />A where-are-we-now section follows, again segmenting the country, this time into more familiar areas with a spotlight on some of its favorite dishes. New England and the Mid-Atlantic tempts you with a mouth-watering photo of boardwalk-style crabcakes while paying prose tribute to (among other foodstuffs) Connecticut’s steamed hamburgers (a phenomenon that eluded me while I was a resident of that state); Delaware’s scrapple; New Jersey’s pork roll, egg, and cheese sandwich; and, of all things, the Fluffernutter, a Massachusetts invention. The first of the book’s recipes gives us lobster rolls from Maine – with its history as well.<br /><br />On to the South (look at those crawfish!), the Southeast, the Midwest (falafel gained its foothold in Michigan thanks to Henry Ford), the Southwest, the Mountain West, and the Far West and Pacific, home to Oregon’s ultra-local Marionberry Pie.<br /><br />Now that we’ve got the country in place with that tour of those places, a more detailed cookery history begins. The emphasis is on immigration, the defining factor in a young country’s recipe evolution. Slaves brought with them seeds and plants and a talent for adapting local ingredients to their own styles of preparation, resulting in such hybrids as jambalaya and gumbo. Railroad development brought an influx of Cantonese workers, who also opened restaurants. “In 2009, there were more than 45,000 Chinese restaurants in the country – more than all of the McDonald’s, KFCs, Pizza Huts, and Wendy’s put together.” The one-two punch of Covid-19 and anti-Asian bias caused 233,000 Asian-American businesses to close, many restaurants among them. <br /><br />Jewish food carved its own niche; Mexican immigrants brought a vital cuisine that evolved as it crossed into Texas, becoming increasingly diluted as it moved north. But Gustavo Arellano, in his book <i>Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America</i>, defends the result: “We must consider the infinite varieties of Mexican food in the United States as part of the Mexican family – not a fraud, not a lesser sibling, but an equal.” (This quote is quoted in <i>Smithsonian American Table</i>.)<br /><br />What’s perhaps the epitome of a watered-down imported cuisine is celebrated in a sidebar describing the culinary journey of Ettore Boiardi, whose Cleveland restaurant<i> Il Giardino d’Italia</i>, which opened in 1924, was so successful that his take-out business soon overtook the restaurant. His legacy lives on today in whatever it is that inhabits cans of Chef Boyardee. And it’s not just geography here. The book takes us through Prohibition, the Great Depression, the rise of soul food, the influence of women during World War II, and much more, with a nod given to phenomena like food trucks. <br /> <br />Food Fads & Trends is my favorite part of the book because it allows us to revel in the backyard barbecue, marvel at the too-sweet compote that is ambrosia salad, and enjoy a variety that includes jell-o molds, fondue parties, and Oreo cookies. Homegrown wine and beer are celebrated, as are cheese-making, fermentation, and hot sauce. And there are recipes for granola, sauerkraut with caraway seeds, mozzarella (pictured in a caprese salad), and a sriracha-style sauce.<br /><br />There are people behind the innovations, and the final chapters of this book celebrate them, known and (almost) forgotten. George Washington Carver is the lead-off, and you’ll find yourself lingering over the recipe for spiced sweet potato-peanut soup. Rural America lacked electricity as the Depression intensified, so the Rural Electrification Act of 1936 sought to change that. Illinois-born Louisan Mamer became the face of this movement, traveling the country to show local women how electricity could improve cooking. Korea-born Ilhan New co-founded La Choy in 1922, soon changing the face of supermarket shelves. And Irving Naxon, born in New Jersey to Lithuanian immigrants, invented the Crock-Pot in 1936. Many more such innovators are described here, and then we move on to the Taste Makers.<br /><br />You know many of them. Fannie Farmer, for instance, “the mother of level measurements,” whose pre-eponymous cookbook first came out in 1896 as <i>The Boston Cooking School Cook Book</i>. Irma S. Rombauer was known in her hometown of St. Louis as, at best, a mediocre cook, but the suicide of her husband in 1930 launched her into a panicky search for income. She wrote and self-published a cookbook the following year in the pages of which she imparted a sense of fun. <i>The Joy of Cooking</i> has now gone through many revisions and sold over 20 million copies.<br /><br />It’s the book that taught Julia Child how to cook, and she went on to teach the world. <i>Mastering the Art of French Cooking</i> sits on my shelf right alongside three editions of Rombauer’s magnum opus. James Beard, Joyce Chen, Alice Waters, and Mollie Katzen are among the others celebrated here, and each of the biographies is followed by a toothsome recipe or two. <br /><br />This very readable book is many things in one. It’s history, it’s social commentary, it’s a new way to consider geography, it offers a fresh way to consider American history. It’s biography, it’s a marvelous array of photos and other images – and it’s a huge variety of recipes, each of them illustrated with a mouthwatering photo that will send you to your kitchen to get started on one of those dishes. And you’ll see that, in so many respects, you’ll get to know this country and the food you eat much, much better.<br /><b><br />Smithsonian American Table:</b><br />The Foods, People, and Innovations That Feed Us <br />By Lisa Kingsley <br />Harvest, an imprint of Harper Collins<br /><br />– <i>knowwhereyourfoodcomesfrom.com</i>, 8 June 2023<p></p>B. A. Nilssonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04932818130398280413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133180.post-18916909768061856232023-06-09T23:32:00.008-04:002023-07-02T23:38:42.325-04:00In the Family<p><span style="color: #660000;"><i>From the Food Vault Dept</i>.: Here’s the restaurant review I wrote 30 years ago, offered now just to make me feel all the older. I had moved to NY’s Montgomery County in 1990, and was still getting to know the area when I discovered Pepe’s Restaurant in nearby Amsterdam. It seemed like one of those places that would live on forever, and indeed was run by family members for 77 years until it closed in April, 2000. Nothing has taken its place. (Nothing <i>could </i>take its place.)</span><br /><br /><strike> </strike> <br /><br />THE NEIGHBORHOOD ON WEST MAIN STREET has changed considerably since Pepe’s opened in 1923. The ethnic character, certainly, is different – what was once a stronghold of Italian newcomers has melting-potted into something more homogeneous by becoming more diverse. The look of the area, too, has changed, simply by staying the same, aging and decaying, accepting only a few later buildings.<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb1U3QbntLi6vGal4C4sbPHihbrGURcLABoz2hg02fEBTIETsk6Tc-9LiYiXqoW0zztnz5kyUrSBLVc2oGwJU8f43VlX1YPwoeitZtsrFJhezcusu494cWp4fYBohd6OtojQqmb_xWE7c-eUSDJSpwD4jhFzj4rEEhvUeaJ__2lvj_CVBB1hvG8A/s980/Pepes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="644" data-original-width="980" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb1U3QbntLi6vGal4C4sbPHihbrGURcLABoz2hg02fEBTIETsk6Tc-9LiYiXqoW0zztnz5kyUrSBLVc2oGwJU8f43VlX1YPwoeitZtsrFJhezcusu494cWp4fYBohd6OtojQqmb_xWE7c-eUSDJSpwD4jhFzj4rEEhvUeaJ__2lvj_CVBB1hvG8A/s320/Pepes.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>There’s still a little enclave of Italian restaurants there, with a newcomer Polish eatery down the street, but Pepe’s has long and quietly dominated the scene.<br /><br />It’s a friendly place with a warm, simple look. Chances are that you’re going to be greeted by one member of the Pepe family and served by another. In the kitchen, Sam Pepe holds forth as he has done for the past half-century, following in a family tradition. In fact, there’s another branch of the family running a bakery in Amsterdam, which is where the cognoscenti go for the best loaves and rolls in town ... but Sam bakes his own bread for the restaurant.<span><a name='more'></a></span><br /><br />“I use unbleached flour and I add an egg to every four pounds, so the bread is a little richer,” he says. He’s right. It’s a nice complement to the simple salad bar that’s included with each entree order. A modest-sized buffet table features mixed greens, sliced tomatoes and a selection of vegetable salads: white bean, beets, celery and carrots, garbanzos, cucumbers.<br /><br />We visited a couple of weeks ago, in the middle of the week, late on a slow night. A TV spoke quietly at one corner of the bar; although we sat out of sight of the thing, the old black-and-white movie it displayed turned out to be American Movie Classics fare. This is my kind of place.<br /><br />Susan started her meal with a cup of cream of broccoli soup, freshly-made, with a tasty chicken stock base. We both travelled to the salad bar, but with portion-control discretion: the entree plates at Pepe’s are generously filled.<br /><br />Before getting to the entrees, let’s look at a side dish we were served. Although the policy is to try to vary the selections as much as possible, we’re such fans of “greens and beans” that we both elected to try the variation offered with dinner: greens cooked with sausage and peppers, served in a very small amount of flavorful stock. Good cooking is both a synthesis and celebration of ingredients, and it can be found in something as simple as this.<br /><br />Broiled halibut, Susan’s entree, came out with a light coating of minced herbs in a butter and wine sauce. It’s a tough call on the cooking – I prefer to find it just warm in the center, while Susan (to whom the phrase “well done” isn’t at all as evil as I regard it) likes it drier and flakier. And so Susan was happy. The plate was nicely dressed with greens and fresh orange. Mine was an order of chicken marsala, given a traditional treatment and sauced very well.<br /><br />“We sell a lot of chicken,” says Sam. “I used to break it all down myself but now I buy 40 pounds at a time, bone out, skin on. So I still have to clean it. And I still break down all the veal I use here, which can take four, five hours a day. I’m not crazy about doing it, but that’s the best value.”<br /><br />The Pepe family originated in Normandy and journeyed from the north of France all the way down to Sicily. “It shows in the cooking,” he says. “I put a little French into it.”<br /><br />Dinner for two, with tax and tip and two glasses of wine, was $40.<br /><br />Pepe’s Restaurant, 218 West Main Street, Amsterdam, 842-xxxx. Serving dinner Sun, Tue-Thu 5-10, Fri-Sat 5-11. MC, V.<br /><br />– Metroland Magazine, 10 June 1993<p></p><br />B. A. Nilssonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04932818130398280413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9133180.post-62271435971009335282023-06-02T19:48:00.014-04:002023-07-02T14:54:00.953-04:00Glenn Miller and Me<p>MY MOTHER WANTED ME to move back in with the family. It was 1974. I was eighteen and already had been living on my own for two years as I finished high school and sought work. I was in Connecticut. The family lived near Chicago, a relocation brought on by my father’s change of employer. During a visit I made that year, Mom played a clever trump card. She knew that what I sought most was a girlfriend, and reasoned that if she could provide one, I’d stay. <br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQjO2jbt9rFSwwY886K1b3H2aFbYZ_WAkEVHdtx2uyRsqZo-CbYArpULk51xg0FozVCGEPLQV9MIwbbvoiqi6BuJYiAgXccUdQWwrixDfmhaFkmOVO-TBF-ODmOBw0GcXNwhf-G9zV4KtIPT-YeJy7ErTNK65yP3H6I_EQ8zFb6qcxSBNWqi7TEQ/s600/Glenn%20Miller%20-%20Harmony.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="599" data-original-width="600" height="319" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQjO2jbt9rFSwwY886K1b3H2aFbYZ_WAkEVHdtx2uyRsqZo-CbYArpULk51xg0FozVCGEPLQV9MIwbbvoiqi6BuJYiAgXccUdQWwrixDfmhaFkmOVO-TBF-ODmOBw0GcXNwhf-G9zV4KtIPT-YeJy7ErTNK65yP3H6I_EQ8zFb6qcxSBNWqi7TEQ/s320/Glenn%20Miller%20-%20Harmony.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Knowing also that I planned to see a concert at Ravinia, the Chicago Symphony’s longtime summer home, she proposed that I escort a young woman I’d never met, one who worked as a nurse alongside my mother at an area hospital. “But I’m not going to see the Chicago Symphony,” I confessed. “I’m going to a Glenn Miller concert.” “I’m sure she’ll like that,” my mother assured me. How I wish that had been true.<br /><br />To be a Glenn Miller fan as a teen in the 1970s was difficult. You were aligning yourself with a generation that came of age during World War II – my parents’ generation, in other words, and the teen-aged me didn’t suffer those fogies very generously. One persistent piece of high-school-aged bitterness sees me hurrying, one Saturday morning, to the home of a classmate who could not have been bettered in beauty, and who suddenly noticed me in school one day. (I remember no names attached to this story, which is a kindness.) Because of my oddball taste in music and other realms of the arts, I was accustomed to being shunned. But she invited me to her house. “I know you’ll have a good time,” she declared.<span><a name='more'></a></span><p></p>She met me at the door when I arrived. With her were two of her (also gorgeous) friends. I’ll leave you to imagine the fantasy this provoked. But: “Oh, hi. I’m glad you’re here. Come with me.” And she led me into a room with books and records lining the walls, and a pipe-puffing man sitting in an expansive chair. “This is my father. I think you have a lot in common. See you later, Dad!” He looked at me and said, “I understand you’re a Glenn Miller fan.”<br /><br />I copped to it, and he showed me his impressive collection of Miller LPs. We listened to some of them as I plotted a polite escape. We didn’t bond over that fandom, because when a potential girlfriend’s parent favors you, it’s a kiss of death. More to the point, we didn’t bond because he came to know the music because it was the popular stuff of his day, while I was still discovering it, ferreting out the jazz components, excited to learn that tenor-sax man Al Klink was born and raised in Danbury, a neighboring city. I was also getting to know the American Songbook, listening to other swing bands as well, as my knowledge of it all increased. This was not nostalgia. It was here and how.<br /><br />But how difficult it proved among my peers to favor Miller! I befriended a few fellow weirdos, fans like me of vintage jazz, and they in turn introduced me to others. We strutted out our knowledge of band stats, trying to one-up one another as fervently as sports fans do, noting who joined which ensemble when, soloing on this recording or that. I mentioned how much I admired Bunny’s famous solo on “Song of India” in 1937 with Tommy Dorsey.<br /><br />“Yes,” drawled one of the assemblage, a lanky fellow who resembled Richard E. Grant, “but he and TD did it much better with Whiteman in the ‘20s, if you can stand that Whiteman sound.” <br /><br />“Well, we have to give Bunny credit for sparking Benny’s band when he got to the Palomar in 1935,” I insisted, prompting Grant to counter, “You mean by helping Goodman continue his wholesale theft of Fletcher Henderson’s arrangements?”<br /><br />“Well, that sure wasn’t the case with ‘In a Little Spanish Town,’ I said, “which Bunny recorded with a pickup band in 1935. That’s the recording that got me into jazz in the first place!”<br /><br />“That,” Grant sneered, “was a Glenn Miller session.”<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ_8eOxypEf7wunoc9xtPIUBUsrb2fIF3IBySZaV_S1yMLqy9lGEgTyrgPj3ctematXjjpIwHr7Ds2MCXHbm3-N0Ctyn5KJ8TrRITQd_0qZZglgOWXSRfSPXSFm2NRte8L-RCpYtd8CxdM5osaeB-pXaFiy28j7eMwkMYnvJNvqK6ZT2wIgCRqQA/s960/Glenn%20Miller%20-%20Uniform.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="960" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ_8eOxypEf7wunoc9xtPIUBUsrb2fIF3IBySZaV_S1yMLqy9lGEgTyrgPj3ctematXjjpIwHr7Ds2MCXHbm3-N0Ctyn5KJ8TrRITQd_0qZZglgOWXSRfSPXSFm2NRte8L-RCpYtd8CxdM5osaeB-pXaFiy28j7eMwkMYnvJNvqK6ZT2wIgCRqQA/s320/Glenn%20Miller%20-%20Uniform.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>(For the record, the personnel on that April 25, 1935 date, alongside Bunny and Glenn, were Charlie Spivak on trumpet, Claude Thornhill on piano, Eddie Miller or Bud Freeman on tenor sax, Johnny Mince on clarinet and alto, Larry Hall on guitar, Delmar Kaplan on bass, and Ray Bauduc on drums. Also recorded that day were “Solo Hop,” which charted, “A Blues Serenade,” and “Moonlight on the Ganges.” As you know, it’s now considered a seminal session.)<br /><br />To Grant’s way of thinking, Miller’s band was tainted by virtue of his immensely popular hits with their wobbly vocals and by the fact that there were two, count ‘em, two Hollywood features featuring the band (not to mention a posthumous biopic about which George T. Simon noted that “it may have contained several inaccuracies, but the tender rapport projected in the film by June Allyson, who reminded me so much of Helen [Miller], and by Jimmy Stewart, who reminded me so very much of Jimmy Stewart, was entirely authentic.”)<br /><br />And then there were the criticisms lobbed at the music itself. The reed voicings that made his sound unique – a silken juxtaposition of clarinet and saxes – were too corny. Might as well be listening to Guy Lombardo (as was Louis Armstrong, although he escaped criticism). The vocalists, Ray Eberle and Marion Hutton, weren’t all that good, making them seem all the more like second choices to their famous siblings, Bob and Betty. And the repertory was swollen with songs ranging from the banal (“A Million Dreams Ago,” “Ring Telephone Ring”) to the stupid (“Three Little Fishes,” “Wanna Hat with Cherries”). All true, all true.<br /><br />What attracted me initially were the up-tempo instrumentals. I was already a fan of Glenn the arranger thanks to an LP of Ray Noble’s American band that featured Miller’s riff-heavy versions of “Way Down Yonder in New Orleans,” “Dinah,” and others. Bluebird recordings of his own band, available at the time in best-of LP compilations, introduced me to his arrangements of “King Porter Stomp” and a frantic “Bugle Call Rag” (quite a contrast to the version he arranged for Noble!) as well as a two-sided “By the Waters of Minnetonka” complete with band members making goofy chirping sounds at the beginning.<br /><br />But there was another name popping up in the “arranged-by” slot that caught my attention: Bill Finegan. He arranged a bunch of the sappier vocal numbers, it’s true, but he also was responsible for “Little Brown Jug,” Frankie Carle’s “Sunrise Serenade,” “Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto,” “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” “Moonlight Sonata,” and “Song of the Volga Boatmen” (the last-named usually misspelled in the singular) – all of which were so engaging and popular and just plain fun to listen to that they formed part of the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra’s wonderful 1958 LP “Memories of Goodman and Miller.” <br /><br />So there was, indeed, what I considered a jazz component to the Miller ensemble if you were patient enough to needle-drop past the dross. At this point I was also collecting many other bands, and RCA Records made it much easier with its Bluebird-label reissues, a stream of two-LP sets included studio recording by Goodman, Shaw, Tommy Dorsey, and Charlie Barnet as well as Miller. Miller’s took nine volumes to cover his civilian orchestra’s stuff (1938-1942), but at least it was complete. The company also did well by Goodman, who conveniently decamped to Columbia, thus curtailing the requirement to eight two-LP sets. Dorsey, on the other hand, they just gave up on, stopping at 1938 but with a decade more to go.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg6bbZaPoAIMW_Lzb4fgNMy7yZnqiwgRyW9h9DsMlA70VtftrZ2BXfGf_s94pNT1w73g2Wv-rj8ciCwQ0YOqwjtgbND_kCFX6WxQy0KnweIXX4u8-IpOji8x2UrIL8o0T74Cj9REm8epbCk2MstRgiTkGD6PvkabeYETEKM-4G6m8umYGSEawOCg/s600/Glenn%20Miller%20-%20Bluebird%20Vol%201.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="597" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg6bbZaPoAIMW_Lzb4fgNMy7yZnqiwgRyW9h9DsMlA70VtftrZ2BXfGf_s94pNT1w73g2Wv-rj8ciCwQ0YOqwjtgbND_kCFX6WxQy0KnweIXX4u8-IpOji8x2UrIL8o0T74Cj9REm8epbCk2MstRgiTkGD6PvkabeYETEKM-4G6m8umYGSEawOCg/s320/Glenn%20Miller%20-%20Bluebird%20Vol%201.jpg" width="318" /></a></div>Of all those Bluebird reissues, the only series to make it to digital in its entirety was Miller’s, with a 13-CD set that also reproduced all of the LP liner notes. Miller’s recordings have always sold well, what with his pop-music-oriented fan base way outnumbering the jazz snobs – and I suspect that many, like me, are hanging on to their CDs (if not LPs and 78s) as the streaming world threatens to engulf us. <br /><br />It was a mixture of curiosity and contrariety that kept me exploring the Miller catalogue. Sure, his “And the Angels Sing” lacked the Ziggy Elman klezmer-style trumpet solo heard on the Goodman recording, but the uncredited arrangement has an ear-catching reeds riff punctuating the vocal refrain, and a muted trombone solo by Glenn that reminds us how good he sounded as a sweet-refrain player. And I discovered a devilish sense of humor in the band. Listen to Marion Hutton’s vocal entrance on “We Can Live on Love.” The refrain begins “We haven’t got a pot to cook in,” but Hutton pauses just long enough before the work “cook” to allow you to mentally insert the word you’re more accustomed to hearing as part of that phrase.<br /><br />And I haven’t even touched on such classics as “In the Mood,” “Tuxedo Junction,” and other popular hits, or the close-harmony group The Modernaires, whom Glenn poached from Charlie Barnet and made excellent use of. Jerry Gray came on board as an arranger and followed Miller into the Army Air Force Band, which is a topic unto itself. The group Glenn assembled in that guise had about the best white musicians he could muster, including swinging pianist Mel Powell well before Powell vanished into abstruse realms of the classical-music world. Once you get past the “something old, new, borrowed, blue” medleys and the drippy Johnny Desmond vocals, the AAF Band was an impressively hot ensemble.<br /><br />But back to civilian life, where saxophonist Tex Beneke became both a stalwart instrumentalist and a featured singer, often prefacing his vocals with a corny whistling routine and then crosstalk with Miller or Marion. Thus are two Harry Warren hits, “Chattanooga Choo Choo” and “(I've Got a Gal In) Kalamazoo” constructed, and now that I’ve mentioned this, you can mentally summon exactly what Beneke’s voice sounds like. He also took the vocal on Frank Loesser’s “The Lady’s in Love with You” featured a crosstalk routine between Glenn and Tex where in Miller says, “Well, I’ve got a new gal who’s a real killer-diller/But I’m not so sure that she goes for Mr. Miller.” Hold that thought. <br /><br />After Miller disappeared over the English channel at the end of 1944 (or was knifed in a bar in Paris, as a drunk at a bar once insisted to me), Beneke was given charge of a newly assembled Miller band, one that Helen Miller insisted must preserve the late leader’s legacy. Beneke went through a number of tribulations, not least being the change in popular-music tastes even as the expense of maintaining such a large payroll swelled. Eventually Tex and Helen reached an impasse, and he not only was dismissed as leader, he wasn’t even invited to appear in that aforementioned biopic.<br /><br />So he did what any ambitious bandsman would do, and put together his own assemblage, playing some of the hits from the Miller book, of course, but also seasoning the program with new songs and arrangements. And that’s the ensemble I saw in 1974. As you recall, I was stuck in Illinois; lonely, miserable at my parents’ house, but happily distracted by the prospect of a date. As I was promised, a real killer-diller. Who may have been prepared to go for Mr. Nilsson – until we got to the grounds and took our seats amidst an unending crowd of oldsters. That a sea of white or blue hair was blowing in the wind was as close as they’d ever get to Bob Dylan.<br /><br />“We must be the youngest people here!” my date exclaimed. No kidding. I tried to assuage her incipient panic in the only way I knew: providing too much information. “But this is really cool,” I noted as I studied the program. “Tex Beneke has Bob Eberle and Helen O’Connell as vocalists. They sang with the Jimmy Dorsey orchestra – don’t confuse him with Tommy – and had some great routines on ‘Amapola’ and ‘Green Eyes,’ which I bet they’ll perform tonight.”<br /><br />The music started. The cause was lost. I enjoyed myself. She didn’t. I was (and remain) pathetic at small-talk, at romance talk, at anything other than describing the nuts and bolts of what interests me. In other words, I’m a bore. I drove her home in comparative silence.<br /><br />I soon loosed myself from Illinois and, eventually, got a job at a classical-music station in Schenectady, NY. That I snuck in a Sinatra cut on Cole Porter’s birthday was one of the many offenses I committed there, leading to the end not only of that career but also of my first marriage. I mention this only to note that marriage number two, which (thank goodness) endures, endures precisely because she’s a Glenn Miller fan. True, she tends to prefer the annoyingly sappy stuff, but at least I’ve got a pot to cook in.<br /><br />– <i>The Syncopated Times</i>, 31 May 2023<p></p>B. A. Nilssonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04932818130398280413noreply@blogger.com0