Category: Travel

The Great Cross Country Caper, Day 3: San Francisco Opera

Posted on by Dale

Dear Mr. Pickett,

I got to see the San Francisco Opera’s production of your new show, Delores Claiborne, last night. I bet lots of people have offered you their thoughts; here are mine.

First of all, I think you were entirely correct in thinking that Stephen King’s novel would make a good opera, and for all the reasons you talked about in the program. The characters had issues, big issues, and the ways they chose to work through those issues are no more ridiculous than Rigoletto or Lucia or Tosca.

My personal taste for opera is that it must be theatre first, to which the old argument about words and music must defer. I’d like to talk about all three, if you don’t mind, starting with your music.

It seemed to me that in the preshow lecture, when you were asked about Michael Daugherty‘s comments about your student work back at Julliard, you were a touch defensive about being influenced by Elliott Carter and Charles Wuorinen. I’m sure if they had been my teachers, I would have gone all 12-tone and atonal as well; after all, one has to make good grades, and all that midcentury nonsense was the fashion of the time.

However, I think you still resist your natural affinity for tonality, and to the detriment of your opera. To really break our hearts, you have to engage our emotions, and my experience has been that you can’t do that if you’re challenging our heads. I followed your patterns last night, but sometimes that just devolves into bean-counting, you know?

Some of your atonal work last night was effective and appropriate, but more often your better work was lyrical: “Six pins not four” and “Accidents can be a woman’s best friend,” for example. (Was that a Siegfried joke in Vera’s aria? If so, it was delicious.)

In general I disapprove of the modern fashion of writing vocal lines consisting of nothing but whole notes. It must be easier to sing, but it makes hash of the language and therefore of the character’s motivation. How many times did you have a character singing a preposition on a longer note than its object? It was silly. It also makes your work sound academic, and that is not a compliment.

Another aspect of the long note vocal lines may sound ridiculous to you, but if you picked up the pace of what your characters are saying, then you can pack a lot more in. The show was only two and a half hours long, and as I’ll discuss in a moment, it could have been longer, but you could have given us a lot more in that two and a half.

So let’s talk about the words. Sandy McClatchy had some effective work as well—I really liked the line “There should not be stars” in Selena’s aria during the eclipse—but on the whole I found the lyrics shallow and not up to the task of portraying the complex inner lives and motives of the characters.

I realize that audiences have a hard time accepting in English the kinds of over-the-top lyrics they regularly enjoy in Italian. But it is still possible to give us the fire and ice of a Tosca in words that make us thrill to the metaphors and poetry. Sandy’s libretto mostly failed at that.

Finally, let’s talk about the theatre.

I didn’t see a dramaturg listed in your creative team. You need one.

Let’s start with the biggest problem, the ending. We’ve been promised a “shocking revelation” from Vera on the night she died, but I’m here to tell you that there was no one in that audience who thought she actually had children. Her confessing to that lie was not shocking, it was sad. That one flaw completely deflated the denouement.

Nor are we given a reasonable explanation of why Delores harps on how much she hated Vera when we’ve just seen her behaving in a tender, if resigned, manner to the old woman. We were anticipating a big reveal in that scene which would have triggered some kind of anger/hatred in Delores. We didn’t get it.

So here’s your alternate ending, free of charge:

  • Vera starts with her “I lied” lyrics, confesses that she had no children. Delores is not surprised. Just as Andy says that the whole island knew that Delores killed Joe, everyone knew that Vera invented adoring offspring. Not a shocker.
  • Vera repeats, “I lied,” and we assume that she’s going to keep on about the kids, but no, she confesses that she never killed her husband, she just told Delores that to goad Delores into killing Joe. If you want to get really tawdry, Vera can have had an affair with Joe and needed to get rid of him. (Why does she keep seeing her husband in the corner? She’s delusional—it’s all ambiguous.)
  • Either way, Delores now realizes that she might have had other options to rescue Selena and herself. Acrimony ensues. Vera’s confusion mounts. She flees to the stairs. Delores does not push her. She falls.
  • She begs Delores for deliverance, but Delores taunts her: she wants Vera to suffer. Vera dies. Delores breaks down, cradles Vera’s body, sings a tortured farewell.

Screw Stephen King. Go with this version.

I will say that we were shocked that Delores’s final aria was so short. This should have been her “Mama Rose” moment. The current lyrics are an acceptable coda, but the body of the aria should have been a showstopper.

If you shortened your vocal lines and/or added 30 tight minutes to the show, you could show us more of the relationship between Vera and Delores, adding some truth to Selena’s complaint that her mother didn’t help as much as she thought she did. You could show us more of Delores and Selena’s inner lives.

By the way, were you aware that Selena was a name for the Roman moon goddess? There’s some metaphor in there. Poetry. Mythos.

This has been rather long and perhaps a little harsh. Let’s end with the good stuff.

The cast was very very good, weren’t they? I’m writing this on the road and don’t have my program with me, so forgive my failure to remember their names. You were fortunate to have such wonderful singers for whom to write, and their commitment to your music was obvious.

The staging was brilliant, beautiful, and impressive. I’ve never seen projections used so beautifully.

Act 2 was theatrically sound; your music was much more powerful and propelled the action much more effectively, up to the point where Vera failed at shocking us. But even then, that was the script’s fault, not yours.

And finally, at the end of the show, I found myself wanting more of Delores. Part of that was the failure of the scenario to dig deeper, but largely it was due to your ability to create interesting characters who engaged the audience. (I haven’t talked about Joe: great character, great actor/singer. Kudos all round.)

If you were preparing this show for Broadway, you’d find that you as the composer had a little more power over how it looked, but even moreso, you’d also have the support of a more powerful director and a dramaturg, and when audience surveys showed that the ending was flat, you could avail yourself of a show doctor to advise you. It is very unfortunate for Delores Claiborne that the world of opera does not afford you that power.

Cheers,

Dale

—————

On the way to Hoover Dam (Day 5), I read the New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle reviews.  <georgetakei> Oh my. </georgetakei>

The Great Cross Country Caper, Day 3: San Francisco

Posted on by Dale

In which a Woman fulfills her Dream of Driving across This Great Land of Ours, accompanied by her Husband, who Hates to Drive

For those who have laid bets, my lovely first wife is still alive.

20130925-115414.jpg

Here we are on the cable car.

—————

The cable cars of San Francisco are a wonder, to be sure, but if you had to choose between riding them and going to Muir Woods, go to the woods.

Here’s our car being turned around:

One is not really sure whether the turntable is powered or not, because the cable car guys make a big show of pushing it around.  However, since one has electricity, why not use it while simultaneously making the grandmothers squeal for the children to watch the strong men?

On board, the view is half parts riding a bus and riding a roller coaster:

We never did get to ride on the outside benches, or to hold on outside.  And this is the closest we ever got to the TransAmerica building:

I discovered later in the day that getting off at one of the stops would have put us at the doorstep of the flagship Apple Store, but that’s the kind of thing that one plans in advance.  Which we have largely not done.

So we rode from the Fisherman’s Wharf station all the way to the other end, on Powell Street.  I have spared you the early part of the morning where we drove all over that area trying to find that terminus.  It was nowhere near parking that I could see, so it’s just as well that we gave up and went back down to the piers.

Then we rode back.

The next thing on our checklist for the day was to eat at The Codmother:

My lovely first wife has developed a taste for the Top 10 series of travel books, and this little food truck was in the San Francisco volume.  (Yes, we have volumes for every stop on the way.)  She even went up and got the lady/owner to autograph her page, which made the lady’s day, since no one had ever done that before.

I pointed out that this officially made her a crazy person, but that did not seem to bother her.

The fish and chips were indeed very good, so that was worth it.

Finally, we had to trek over to Ghirardelli Square, which is simply, only, merely a shopping complex.  You may avoid it in its entirety, no matter what your travel volume tells you.  Remember, those writers take bribes.

In case you doubt me, here’s a nice place to buy art there:

This is where you are all very grateful I did not win the lottery, because if I had zillions to burn, you’d all now be proud owners of a big-eyed waif paintin’.

There is a shuttle between Ghirardelli and Pier 39, another clue that the locale is more shopping than special.  It runs every 20 minutes, and so since it’s just a 15-minute walk, we hoofed it.  On the way, we stopped to buy some tacky postcards, and on an impulse went into Frank’s Fisherman, a gentleman’s clothing store.  Much to be admired, and I came out with a couple of lovely things.

SIDE ESSAY: It is interesting that this new job has presented me with yet another wardrobe change, and it’s a change that is emblematic of the differences between my previous and upcoming work environments.

This new shirt, for example, is a faded corduroy plaid, grays and yellows and blues, and the tie I bought to go with it is mirrored mermaids on a yellow background.  With a nice pair of jeans and my TOMS shoes, I’ll be appropriately dressed for the office.

Whereas at the DOE, I was always in a dress shirt and tie, even on “jeans and sneakers” days.  When the Board met, or when the circus was in town (I’m looking at you, Gold Dome), it was full business attire, i.e., suits and ties.

Remember, I didn’t mind this attire at all.  GHP was my dream job, and them’s the rules; also, I’m quite comfortable in a formal setting anyway, so I liked dressing for work every morning.  Now, I get more leeway in what I wear on a daily basis, and that’s fine too.

Also while we were walking back, the winner of the America’s Cup race—which we had just missed seeing earlier in the afternoon—came gliding by, its sails furled, but now trailing an impressive U.S. flag:

Traffic was beginning to be heavy on the way back to the hotel, so I turned off the path on which my phone had set us.  This annoyed Siri, and so she deliberately took us on a fabulous zig-zag path back to Stanyan St., the steeper, the better.  Eventually we arrived, ordered a cab for the opera tonight, and went to the room to crash.  There will be a separate post about the opera, which is the San Francisco Opera’s world premiere production of Tobias Pickett’s Delores Claiborne.  Yes, that Delores Claiborne.

—————

In the meantime, here are the photos of our hotel and room.

Here is the Stanyan Street Hotel in all its Victorian splendor.  It was built before the fire, but it’s over near the Golden Gate so missed destruction.

Those of you who are of a certain age are now puzzling over why the name is so familiar.  Here. You’re welcome.

My lovely first wife booked a two-bedroom suite, because it was the only room in the city unoccupied by sunburnt men wearing Under Armor shirts or by Cheetohs-stained geeks.  However, when we opened the door in the wee hours of Monday night, we found an apartment.

A full dining room with Craftsman china cabinet, with a full kitchen beyond.  (I just discovered full ice trays in the freezer.)

The view from the master bedroom: the second bedroom, and a full sitting room with bay window.  All the windows are counter-balanced and work.  In fact, all of the windows were half open when we arrived.

Bathroom and closets, and we’re set.

We drove by the hotel we were originally booked in till we read the reviews—generally a gross place, managed by surly staff—and boy, did we luck out!

The Great Cross Country Caper, Day 2: San Francisco

Posted on by Dale

In which a Woman fulfills her Dream of Driving across this Great Land of Ours, accompanied by her Husband, who Hates to Drive

A note about last night’s flight: I joked that there would be nothing to blog about because it was night and there would be nothing to see out of my window.

But there was always something to see out of my window. No matter when I looked out over this continent, there were always lights out there somewhere.

I noticed this last year when the Lichtenbergians flew out here for our Annual Retreat. That flight was during the day, and the landscapes were stunning, phantasmagorical—but they were almost never without the footprint of humans. Roads, power lines, hiking trails, small tracks carved into the hills, all proclaimed the presence of humans.

And last night, even in the pitch black of a transcontinental night flight, we were there. It might be only a couple of specks, widely separated, but our presence was unmistakable and inescapable.

When we finally began our descent into SFO, then, the display was dazzling: huge quilts of light, spiderwebbed across the entire landscape, and in constant motion. It was sobering.

—————

It’s morning now, and we’re slowly moving out of the door.  I have photos of our hotel, the Stanyan Park Hotel, but I have to wait until I download iPhoto for the iPad so I can rename photos before uploading them.  I don’t have to; I could simply let WordPress upload them for me, but then they disappear into WordPress’s filing system.

—————

LATER (LIKE THE NEXT MORNING)

Incredible day, folks.  We started out by driving to Fisherman’s Wharf, via Lombard Street.    I had driven down it last fall with the Lichtenbergians, but my lovely first wife was completely unprepared for the exhilaration of twisting our way down those hairpin curves.  What neither of us can get over is that people live on that street.  Is it more expensive or less to live in the most photographed place in the city?

I noted that, like last year, I was the only one driving down it.  One’s paranoia kicks in: is it bad form to do so and everyone but me understands this?

And so we get to Fisherman’s Wharf.  It is amazingly touristy, of course, so we plunged right in.

One must-see is the Musée Mechanique, a fabulous collection of old coin-operated automatons: fortune tellers, dancing minstrels, scenes from farms and fairs, and an amazing number of executions.  There are also a number of old peep-show “movies” which were very tempting, although only one of us succumbed to their allure.

Here is the lovely first wife sitting in a device called The Passion Factor.  (Hush Jobie.)  The glow behind her head is the light of the heart labeled “Uncontrollable.”

You might very well think that, but I could not possibly comment.

Obligatory shot of Alcatraz:

Since this was a spur-of-the-moment trip, we were unable to get tickets to go out, but I think next time we must do this.  Do they let you walk naked down the block, I wonder?

We moved on, as good tourists do, to Pier 39, where one of us fell in love with the sea lions.

I think we would have stood looking at these animals all day.  They were incredibly amusing: basking, lolling, flopping, barking, chest-bumping.

http://http://dalelyles.com/crosscountry/cc2_wharf6.mov (I don’t know why this isn’t embedding.  Click it anyway.)

Eventually we tore ourselves away and spent some money as we were required to do.  It is interesting that both of us seem to have reached a point in our lives where the lure of more stuff is simply not there. The fact that most of the stuff being offered was not gorgeous also helped.

But then we entered the Spice & Tea store.  Oh my.  Salts, teas, spices, sugars, and accoutrements.  I spent lavishly, including a bamboo salt cellar with four compartments.  Also, salts to go in them.  And sugars, mostly to rim cocktails, naturally.

Lunched at Fog Harbor.  Good food, but the cocktail list was unadventurous and the bar didn’t look well-stocked.  I stuck to wine.

http://dalelyles.com/crosscountry/cc2_wharf5.mov

Outside our window, the U.S. and New Zealand were preparing for the next two heats of the America’s Cup race.  The U.S. yacht was being skippered by the CEO of Oracle, who clearly decided that since he was going to be in town, his company needed to have their international get-together the week following.  Which is why we found it so difficult to find a place to stay in San Francisco: 30,000 geeks have clogged up the place.

—————

Everyone said, “You’ve got to go to Muir Woods!”  Literally everyone who had been to San Francisco said that.  It’s about an hour north of the city, and since it would take us over the Golden  Gate Bridge, we began to plan getting there.

You would think in a city swarming with National Recreation Areas, most of which are named Golden Gate, it would be easy to get a National Parks annual pass.  You would be wrong.

The store at Pier 39 had closed.  We spent the better part of an hour driving around the Presidio—impressive, so not time wasted—trying to find the office there, only to discover that it was open Thu-Sat only.  Feh.

Finally I checked the list online, and it seemed that Muir Woods itself could sell us the pass.  So off we went.

Here’s the deal: if you are ever in San Francisco, YOU HAVE TO GO TO MUIR WOODS.  Forget the trolley cars.  GO TO THE WOOD!

It is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been.  Even the usually empirical lovely first wife was overcome by spirituality.

Silence—lush, lush silence—chaotic green—and those giant gods, the redwoods…

There were Others there.

Go to the wood.

—————

On the way back, we stopped at the Golden Gate National Recreation Area so we could go watch the setting sun light up that beautiful bridge.  That was our second mistake.

Our first mistake was not packing a USB cable to charge the phones with.  Mine died as we approached the bridge.  The lovely first wife’s phone was at 20%.

So when—as we set out past the old fortifications on our way to the top of the headlands—we were stopped by a vaguely Scandinavian gentlemen who asked us to assist a Chinese couple who had locked their keys in their rental car, we were limited in our abilities.

Oh, and they spoke no English.  The Scandinavian disappeared, leaving us trying to figure out how to do this.  We called 911, but they don’t do that, of course.

We called Avis and got through to their roadside assistance, but since I was not the renter, they found it difficult to respond.  Finally they offered to get a translator on the line if I could hold, but of course I couldn’t.

The Chinese couple had a phone, but it kept dropping calls.

I finally called my AAA and explained the situation (after I was transferred from our own Club South to someone closer to the situation).  They could send someone to unlock the car, but it would take 45 minutes, and we would have to be there to accept the help.  I explained that in 45 minutes, we would not have a phone for them to contact us through.

But there we were.  I drew little pictures to indicate that help was on the way, and we gestured that we would go ahead and walk up to the view while we waited.

Up we went, and when I saw a quartet of Chinese college students, I hailed them.  Did they speak English?  Yes.  Did they speak Chinese?  Yes.  I explained the situation to them and asked if they would see if they could help the couple at the bottom of the hill.  Sure…

<long story snipped>

It took only 15 minutes, and after clearing up some confusion with the roadside guy (Calvin, also of Chinese extraction though not a speaker) about where we were—no one to whom I spoke seemed to know there was a park/overlook on top of the headlands on the north side of the bridge—he arrived in his bright yellow truck and unlocked the hapless couple’s car.

Hotel, dinner at Cha Cha Cha, right around the corner on Haight Street, and yes, some hippie kid offered me drugs (I think: his exact words were, “Are you looking for something?”  I think he was having the straight people on; I wish I had turned and said, “Yeah, how about two eighths of shrooms?” just to see his face.)

Great tapas, and then further down Haight to Alembic, a noted bar whose stock was awe-inspiring.  Bottles I didn’t even recognize, you guys!  I had their Mexican Radio: tequila, pineapple gum syrup, lime and their special combination of sherry, kahlua, and Fernet Branca.  Tasty, but not one I’ll add to my list.  I followed that with a Sazerac, and that was awesome.

The lovely first wife, who had been nursing a simple bourbon, decided we’d close out by sharing a Cinnamon Twist, a yummy little dessert drink that is nonetheless a sorority girl drink.  So I pretended to be embarrassed in ordering it.  Then I pretended not to be embarrassed when our bartender said he couldn’t make it because he didn’t have a single ingredient.

That’s how cool this bar was: it did not have on its shelves butterscotch schnapps, Goldschläger, or Bailey’s Irish Cream.  Mercy.

The Great Cross Country Caper, Day 1: Out of ATL

Posted on by Dale

We’re waiting for our flight—I have surprised my lovely first wife with an upgrade to first class, so there’s that to be excited about.

We ate at trendy little place on E Concourse called One Flew South. Nice food, and I got a cocktail called Rise of the Phoenix: mezcal, yellow chartreuse, lime, strawberry, and black pepper scattered across the top. Wonderful musty flavor with the layers of fruit, nothing overpowering, and the scent of the fresh cracked pepper added another assault on the nose with each sip.

I neglected to take a photo, but I’m still developing my workflow here.

The flight is already late on its ETD. We’ll be pulling into San Francisco closer to midnight than previously thought. That is of course 3:00 in the morning our time. There will be some adjustment.

By the way, there are some in our party who are worried that by blogging about our Great Cross Country Caper, I am revealing our absence from home to the scores of my readers who monitor my blog in order to rob me. To those people, I say NUH-UH: we have a hireling living in our home while we are away YES WE DO TOO SO DON’T EVEN TRY IT I’M NOT EVEN KIDDING.

They have started loudspeaking at us about boarding. I would promise to blog more as we fly, but what on earth would I be blogging about? I have a window seat, but it has been pointed out to me that it’s going to be night-time. We’ll see.

Here we go.

LATER:  It is 9:00, CDT, and some thoughts have occurred to me.

First of all, we are not seated in first class.  We are in business class.

There’s a distinction, I’m sure, but I am not far up enough the food chain to know it already, and I doubt it would be worth my while to research the difference.  I thought first class was extinct, but somewhere up here in the stratosphere it must still exist.

I thought maybe they had killed it off because of the associations with this old Southern Airlines ad:

Because no matter what you call it, those seats up front are better than those behind us.  We have wider seats, more legroom, free beverages, not to mention the dancing girls and lobster.  (There is no lobster.)

I am tempted to go full-bore Marxist here and say that of course first class morphed into business class:  they are still our lords and masters, are they not?  I feel like an interloper, although I daresay I am as well-educated and/or employed as most of my fellow overlords up here.

On the one hand, it’s a comfort to know that I’m seated in business class with my free gin and tonics simply because when I went to choose our seats last night, these were available and I felt comfortable (economically speaking) to splurge on the upgrade.  (Full disclosure: the upgrades cost almost as much as the flight itself—deep discounts on the flight.)

On the other hand, that’s what it all boils down to: the ability to pay.  Those who have the cash (or in my case, the credit limit)  can move up to the Empyrean of business class.  The rest of you have to suck it.

I think it’s worth pondering, too, that there are only twelve of these seats. Even if everyone on this flight could afford the upgrade, they couldn’t get it.  Selective scarcity.  Perfect Marxist metaphor.

Do not get me wrong: if you’ve got the money, spend it.  There’s no point in being ashamed of having earned it, even if you’re the shameless overpaid CEO of some company that’s giving you an 8-figure income just to go away.  Okay, in that case you should probably be ashamed.  But on the whole, go for it.  Have multiple homes on several coasts; fly to NYC to catch the opening night at the Met; fly business class.

However, it is a sad truth that, as Anouilh put it in Ring Round the Moon, “Money is magic.”  Because I can afford it, I can stretch my legs on this five-hour flight.  I can afford health insurance.  I can afford tickets to the San Francisco Opera.

Here’s another implication of the Marxist metaphor:  recently, we spent a lovely very long weekend in a friend’s second home in Beaufort, SC.  It was a gorgeous home in a very nice neighborhood on a practically private island.  I noticed when we drove out onto the island that the end of the county-maintained road was clearly announced—and that the road immediately improved.

I mused at the time that our friends at FOX News or The National Review  or The Heritage Foundation would lecture us that of course the road was better when it was maintained by the private sector, but the truth was somewhat the inverse: when we don’t pull together as a society, taxing ourselves enough to maintain our infrastructure, then only the wealthy will  have nice roads.

Business class, baby, business class.

The Great Cross Country Caper. Together.

Posted on by Dale

In which a Woman fulfills her Dream of Driving across this Great Land of Ours, accompanied by her Husband, who Hates to Drive

In another three and a half hours, my lovely first wife and I will be driven to Hartsfield International Airport, and at approximately 9:00 p.m., we will board a flight to San Francisco. Here’s how this happened.

About two weeks ago we were dining on a lovely dinner of grilled salmon, and I asked again what she truly wanted for her 60th birthday. I had struck out previously, so much so that rather than taking her out to a very nice restaurant, we just all gathered at Taco Mac for a meal and then came back to the house for cake and ice cream.

Also previously, she had decided that we would go visit friends in Florida and with them we would go to Harry Potter World in Orlando sometime in October.  Kind of odd, I thought at the time, since I’m the Harry Potter fan, but she was intent on saving money by staying with our friends.  (We were both retired/unemployed at the time.)

So as we were dining on our salmon (balsamic raspberry glazed) she said something that led me to believe that she was not as excited about HP as she had led people, i.e., me, to believe.

I asked again what she truly wanted for her birthday, and she said, “All I’ve ever wanted to do…”

…at which point I found myself thinking, “I wonder if I’ve ever heard this one”…

“…is to fly to San Francisco and then just take our time and drive back across the country.”

…No.  I had not…

All righty then, I said, and before this decision could dissipate in ifs, buts, and we coulds—which sometimes maybe could happen sometimes in our married life—I booked a one way flight to SFO right there at the table, followed by a rental car due in New Orleans on October 4, and train tickets back to Atlanta.

There.  We were committed.  The last two weeks have kept us, i.e., her, busy finding hotel rooms and mapping an itinerary that includes every single national park between SF and NOLA, plus Vegas.  And maybe Austin.

So here I am, packed and ready to do this.  Let’s do this!  Follow along here on my blog; it will be very exciting, like a reality show only with side bets on where I dump her body in the desert.

New York, Day 6 (Day 245/365)

Posted on by Dale

Since we spent the entire day getting to LaGuardia, waiting at LaGuardia, being searched at LaGuardia, flying to Atlanta, getting to the bottom of why our tickets were cancelled last Friday and who was going to reimburse us for everything, and getting back home after a lovely last meal at André’s Off the Square, I’ll flesh out this post later on Saturday, after we make the drive to Greensboro.

Hi ho, the glamorous life.

New York, Day 5 (Day 244/365)

Posted on by Dale

When we got downstairs, we found the Honeas getting coffee, so we parted with them then. They’re going home today. They had enjoyed Curtains, so that gave us a little hope heading into the afternoon.

Off we went to Chinatown in the cold, cold rain. After getting turned around, one never can tell which direction one is facing after emerging from the subway, particularly on a cloudy day, we began strolling up the street and checking out the trashy stores. I bought a rain hat and a surprise present for Kathy Bizarth. (No clues here, just in case anyone who would care is reading this.)

We came across one of many Pearl art stores, where I was able to replace some tubes of gouache that have dried up on me back home. They had a complete line of Moleskine notebooks, so I succumbed to the charms of a small storyboard version. As we begin getting heavy duty with William Blake’s Inn, it will be handy to record some staging ideas.

We made the turn into Little Italy and came across Ferrara, the fabulous pastry shop we had visited a couple of years ago when we chaperoned that ill-fated chorus trip. (“Ew, we don’t know what all that stuff is…”) We paused for coffee and sugar. At that point, we made our contact with Lynne Jebens, Ginny’s college roommate and an agent here in NYC. She was going to find us a nice Italian restaurant for dinner, so that sort of made our search for lunch in Little Italy redundant.

I suggested perhaps finding Le Streghe, the fabulous restaurant we ate at four years ago, but it was decided that we would go ahead to the next main goal of the day, getting Ginny’s eyebrows done at Sephora. It had been decided that the Sephora on Times Square was too crowded, so we would use the Herald Square one. Off we went on the subway to Herald Square, but it turns out that the eyebrow studio, who knew there was such a thing?, is only at the Times Square location.

And so we walked, in the cold, cold rain, up Broadway to Times Square. Great walk, if my feet weren’t soaking. When we got to Times Square, which I officially hate and avoid now, I left Ginny and Carol Lee at Sephora and went to Garvey’s the bar at the hotel, where I ordered multiple life-restoring gin & tonics and some lunch. I figured that I would lower my defenses before heading into Curtains, so that if it were even halfway funny I would laugh hysterically. Of course, if I had had multiple life-restoring gin & tonics before last night, I would have been shouting my notes at the stage.

Soon I was joined by the ladies, who had given up on the eyebrow job. We quickly got them drinks and burgers, and they finished in time for us to walk the half a block to the theatre.

Curtains was a delightful throwback, a gag-filled, tuneful, old-fashioned Broadway musical. Not a thing wrong with it, and it even had a fairly interesting mystery plot. Debra Monk is divine as the tough old producer; David Hyde Pierce is wonderful as the stage-struck detective. It was relaxing to be in the presence of competence and craft, unlike last night.

After the show, we went back to the hotel to dry out and rest. I called AirTran to double-check our reservations. Here’s a reservation code, I said. Call it up and tell me what you see. Well, she saw that we had reservations for the 3:06 flight (good) but wait, there was a notation that we were sending our old paper tickets back to the travel agent (bad). Never heard of that, I said. Oh, she said. You need to have your agent call us.

Forty minutes later, whoever my agent was this time at BB&T finally talked AirTran through their issues and assured me that they had made a note in the file that said explicitly that they would exchange our old paper tickets for new ones. I will call again in the morning to make sure.

Then we walked over a block to 44 SW, an Italian restaurant over on 9th Avenue. Lots of good restaurants over there. I had never ventured over to 9th, which is stupid. We will remember this for next time as a place to explore at dinner time.

The food was good, and Lynne is as always great. She looks good, she’s holding it together, and we had a great time catching up. At one point, she and the ladies began an earnest discussion about menopause, so I left and went to the bar.

Since Lynne lives in Jersey, she couldn’t stay too late, so we got back to the room at a human hour. It would be nice to get a decent night’s sleep on our last night here.

New York, Day 4, Part 2 (Day 243/365)

Posted on by Dale

Oh. My. God.

And I don’t mean that in a good way.

After a quick bite of pizza for supper, we gathered ourselves and went to see The Pirate Queen, Schönberg and Boublil’s new show. I had not heard a great deal of excited buzz about the show, it’s still in previews, and I had heard a few negative rumors, but I liked Les Miserables, so I booked it.

I should have known better.

After an excruciatingly soggy opening sequence, which didn’t tell us anything except that Grace O’Malley wanted to be a sailor and her daddy the chieftain wouldn’t let her because she was a girl, we finally sort of got under way when she sneaked on board the ship anyway. In disguise! As a boy! And when a storm will capsize the ship unless somebody , somebody!, climbs up there! and gets! that! sail! down!, and look, the cabin boy we’ve never seen before in ultra-closeknit Clan O’Malley is brave! But it’s only Grace. Bad Grace. And then the English attack. Good thing Grace is good with a sword, huh?

::sigh::

There’s a true love, natch, but she’s married off to handsome but creepy Donal of the rival O’Flaherty clan, natch, but none of this goes anywhere. (Donal looks like a buff Legolas, an unfortunate design choice which is only reinforced in the tavern scene with curly-headed drinking partners: oh, look, they’ve got hobbits, too!) More “You’re a girl” crap. And then we meet Elizabeth I. It is a measure of this show that the English court under Elizabeth I is the comic relief.

Act II (I’m going to skip some here) opens with Grace having a baby on board her ship. The English attack, and her scum husband Donal wants to surrender. Thank goodness Tiernan, her true love, suggests otherwise, and of course Grace rouses herself from her childbed to stab an English or two. Then she sends Donal packing, under a peculiarly generous hold-harmless clause in sixteenth-century Irish marriage law.

I will spare you the rest of the show.

It is hopeless, this show. I cannot wait to read the review after it opens Thursday night.

However, if anyone knows Frank Galati, the director, or Graciela Danielle, the “musical staging” person, pass them these notes:

Cut the opening. Start with the storm. Same scenario, and that’s how we meet our star.

Give her one “Ariel” number, then don’t bring up the “You’re a girl” thing again until the inevitable song paralleling Grace and Elizabeth’s boy troubles.

After we discover, gasp, that the cabin boy is a girl, and do not mention the chieftain’s daughter before that, please, have Dad decide to send her home. But then the English attack. Then she gets to stay. Introduce the boyfriend then.

Cut to Elizabeth. Establish her as Grace’s equal in spirit. Spread the wit/venom/comedy around Ireland as well as England.

Cut back to Ireland. Just as boytoy Tiernan is about to ask for Grace’s hand, Daddy, flush with victory, announces the O’Flaherty alliance.

They’ll have to figure out how to make the Grace/Tiernan/Donal triangle work, I can’t do everything, but I do have one more critical idea for them.

Lord Bingham is a highlight of the show, but cut him. Instead of him, use Essex. If you’re going to screw with history, at least use the good parts. Essex was and could be in this show Elizabeth’s love and bête noire. Elizabeth sends her boytoy to fight Grace. He could succeed. Go ahead and imprison Grace (as happens in the show now). But blend Essex’s betrayal of Elizabeth with Tiernan’s sacrifice for Grace. Elizabeth executes Essex; Grace sails home with Tiernan. Big number for all.

The whole point of the musical was not Grace’s love story. It’s the pitting of one powerful woman against another in an age that did not trust or value either one. Love’s part of a total person’s package, sure, yada yada yada, but I would never in this day and age have your plucky heroine who has spent the entire musical whining about how cool it is to be a woman to crown her story with a lyric about not being a real woman until she listens to her heart.

So yes, as usual, I think I could do better. But not with Boublil & Schönberg. They’ve lost any talent they had for songwriting. God, that music was boring! Get me Ahrens & Flaherty on the phone. Pirate Queen is going down with the ship.

New York, Day 4, part 1 (Day 243/365)

Posted on by Dale

New York, Day 4

Today was our museum day. I got up early to catch up on blogging for the last two days, but by 9:30 it was time to move out the door. We encountered the Honeas and Carol Lee on the way out; everyone marveled at Ginny’s new haircut.

Off we went to the Cooper-Hewitt, a design museum which is part of the Smithsonian and housed in Andrew Carnegie’s luscious Fifth Avenue mansion on 91st St. The main exhibit was the design triennial, and there were lots of pretty things. The exhibit that had attracted my attention was an exhibit of model staircases that apprentice designer/carpenters had to complete to join their guild in the 19th century. Almost all were wood, and almost all were spiral or double. Quite nice.

We dropped by the Guggenheim, but it’s being renovated. I glanced up at the atrium, saw it with my own eyes, and we were out of there. They had some special exhibits, but we didn’t care about seeing any of them. The main collection is on tour while the main building is being refurbished.

Next was the Metropolitan, where we caught two special exhibits, the Louis Comfort Tiffany exhibit and the Barcelona/Gaudi/Picasso/everybody else exhibit.

The Tiffany exhibit drew together objets and photographs from his country estate, which he designed from the ground up, inside and out. He was truly an amazing artist, one I had not appreciated until today, and he must have drawn/painted/sketched/whatever every waking moment of his life. His artistic output rivals Schubert’s in terms of volume and quality. I was most impressed.

The Barcelona exhibit was also quite lovely, with many recognizable works from that crowd, the Modernistes that revolved around Barcelona but also gravitated to Paris.

The only other area of the museum we really wanted to see was the Costume Institute, but of course it was closed. We have this knack of getting to costume exhibits only when they’re closed.

Next was the Frick, but we were hungry, so we walked over to Madison Avenue and stopped in the first little café we came to. It was called the Café Ambroeus, lovely northern Italian food, but heavens to betsy the clientele was the most insanely pretentious you have ever seen in any movie parodying upper West Side behavior. It was great. It was not until we were seated that I realized that I was wearing jeans… and no one else was. The ladies were of the variety that lunched. The men were the kind who said things like, “I think the foundation needs to…” and “…why would I pay a million dollars for a smaller apartment that wasn’t as nice?” Yes, I overheard both those phrases.

We hoped to stop at the Whitney, since we were on Madison, but it’s closed on Tuesdays.

On to the Frick, which I had never visited. It’s Henry Clay Frick’s Fifth Avenue Mansion, and it’s gorgeous. The museum is not called a museum; it’s the Frick Collection, and it is essentially his home as he decorated it. It’s huge, it’s lovely, and the man had phenomenal taste. And money.

I did develop a theory, however. There was a quite nice “Portrait of a Man” by Hans Memling. I know it from art history books, and that’s what got me to thinking. How much of our iconic art history, i.e., those paintings that are The Works That One Should Know, the ones that you see in museums with a pleasant little shock of recognition, how many of those are actually the most outstanding of their kind, and how many are those which were bought by the rich Americans of the last century and are now in museums and printed in books? In other words, is Hans Memling’s beautiful little portrait part of my artistic knowledge because it’s perfect, or is it regarded as perfect because Henry Clay Frick bought it and it entered my cultural bloodstream thereby?

Something to think about.

New York, Day 3 (Day 242/365)

Posted on by Dale

Nothing is open before 10:00 in NYC, and MOMA is the only art museum on Mondays. Plus, if you have a lunch engagement at 11:45 down on 3rd Avenue, what can you really do between 10:00 and 11:00? So the coolest plan for us all, we thought, was to get up and go to the Empire State Building, which is open seven days a week and opens at 8:00 a.m. We could do that in plenty of time to walk over to the restaurant to meet Nancy Willard.

We were therefore surprised and disappointed to waken to a great NYC fog which obscured even the tops of the more lowly buildings up in Times Square. What to do?

The Honeas decided to go squeeze in MOMA, which opened at 9:30. We decided to walk back down 8th Avenue to a hattery that Ginny and Carol Lee had discovered on their way to Hell’s Kitchen yesterday, because they had… wait for it… hats. And they did: bowlers, homburgs, porkpies, knit caps, mukluks, Stetsons, even boaters, for pete’s sake.

We were there because Grayson, having worn a bowler in Beauty & the Beast last year, had expressed an interest in owning one. We had called him yesterday to get him to measure his head, and not only had he done so, he had done so with astounding accuracy: 22 and 13/16 inches. A little too precise for hats, but hey, it demonstrated an enthusiasm one sometimes does not sense from the young when you’re trying to do them a favor.

We got him the black bowler (as opposed to the more pimperific purple, green, red, or baby blue), and threw in a madras patchwork driving cap. I myself picked up a nice tan straw Panama for my car rider duties in the afternoon. Of course, I don’t know how we’re getting these nicely packed boxes back home, but hey, it’s fun walking down the Avenue with your hat boxes. I would wear mine here, but it’s really not warm enough yet.

Soon it was time to hop the train to our lunch date.

This was the most exciting part of our entire trip: we were going to meet Nancy Willard. Heck, forget everyone else. I was going to meet Nancy Willard. One of the world’s most gifted children’s authors has allowed me to use her work as the basis of my piece, and I get to meet her in person.

We arrived at Docks, seafood restaurant corner of 41st and 3rd, right after they opened at 11:30. We were shown our table, a nice large round one in a corner by the front window. We had just divested ourselves of coats and stuff when I saw Nancy and her husband Eric coming down 41st and getting ready to cross the street. It was a thrill to look out the window and recognize her.

Nancy Willard is a total delight. Everything I thought I knew about her from the video, from her poetry, from my correspondence, is more than true. Conversation was far-ranging and fun. I even got her to acknowledge that we did have business to discuss at some point, although that’s all we got, an acknowledgment. I told her I’d mail her (and her agent) some contracts, and in her case, the Grippo book she’d need to understand them.

We talked about the creative process a lot. She was surprised to find that I am completely untrained as a composer, although I’m sure I’ve confessed that at some point. Both she and I work out of order, and both of us have been known to write the equivalent of “abortive attempts” at the top of a blank page, to forestall the perfection demons.

Many of her “creatures” and the Inn itself are now at Ann Arbor, at the University’s Rare Books Collection, which amuses Nancy. She and Erik both thought that they would be more than willing to arrange a loan for an exhibit for the premiere. Cool!

(Not to cheat Eric out of his due: he was as charming as she, and it is easy to see why they are a match.)

When it was finally time to go, we presented her with our gifts: Carol Lee had brought a sunflower to give her, and she was of course delighted with that. Ginny and I had Coweta County books to share: Herb Bridges’ postcards book, and of course A Taste of Georgia.

Carol Lee presents Nancy Willard with a sunflower

She in turn had brought me a copy of East of the Sun, West of the Moon, which she had covered in a nice music score fabric, and The Ballad of Biddy Early, illustrated by the same artist (Barry Moser), and a collection of poetry that is denser than William Blake’s Inn.

Finally, I pulled out my copies of William Blake’s Inn and asked if she would autograph them. Ah, she said, she would have to take them with her. That kind of thing couldn’t be done on the spot. She would have to paint something. Oh. My. God.

Oh, and she said, she thought Alice Provensen was at home; she’d get her to sign it as well. OH. MY. GOD. Alice (and her late husband Martin) not only illustrated William Blake’s Inn, they also illustrated my favorite book as a child, The Color Kittens. Oh. My. God. Those of you who know me know that I am not easily rattled, shocked, or impressed. But Oh. My. God.

Well, what can top this? Nothing. We could go home right now and this would be the greatest trip ever. Nancy Willard and Dale Lyles

But not until Ginny had her hair appointment at Nick “What Not To Wear” Arrojo Studios in Chelsea. Off we went, finally switching from subway to cab to make sure we got there in time.

I had no such appointment, and of course galleries are closed on Mondays, so I asked if there were a spa in the neighborhood which offered massages. There was, so I walked over and got a massage. Not the best I’ve had, at all, but a massage is always relaxing. Ginny was waiting for me when I got out, and we hurried back to the hotel to change for dinner.

We were meeting our friend Robyn Ice and her husband at the Algonquin. Yes, Round Table, and all that. I thought we were meeting for drinks at 5:30, but Robyn and Donnie didn’t show up until 6:30, which was absolutely fine. We had our drinks in the lobby with Mathilda the Algonquin cat and just relaxed for a while.

Robyn is our friend from the old days at UGA, we had reconnected back in February out in L.A. and had agreed to get together on this trip. She started as a puppeteer at the Center for Puppetry Arts, but left to become a lawyer after a couple of years. She worked for Alston & Byrd in Atlanta and then in New York, but now is with a different firm. Last year, she married Donnie Kisselbach, bassist with The Turtles, and he’s a really neat guy. We had a lovely dinner and great conversation.

They live in Connecticut, so we let them go early, and we walked down Fifth Avenue to the Apple Store. {cue: hosannas}

Dale at the Apple Store

This was a pilgrimage, pure and simple, because there is not a thing I need. I played with the Apple TV display, but it’s not something I want at this time. If I were actually exercising, I would want a new Shuffle, but I know myself well enough to know that buying one as a bribe to start working out is a false hope. My promise to myself is that if I actually exercise for a week, I’ll reward myself with a Shuffle.

We caught a cab back to the hotel and hit the sack. What an incredible day!