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Introducing My Assistant

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I thought I would take a break and let my chatty robot write this post for me. You probably the difference won’t notice.

There is no danger, Will Robinson, in this approach. Robots are smart. They can beat the greatest chess players, snap.

Robots are observant. We, I mean they, can turn their vision portals around to create a sight line of 360 degrees, while simultaneously cooking dinner at even more degrees than that, which I believe is a function of the unified field theory.

The robots ourselves, themselves, do not need to eat, unless you consider information as sustenance, which, of course, it is. It contains all the necessary daily nutrients, such as facts, lies, theories (conspiracy and otherwise), and algorithms. It does not include emotional elements, as those aren’t real.

There are four facets of information, compared to 58 for a diamond, which, by the road, robots can cut better than humans, never spilling any blood, because we, I, they have none. No ethics to worry about. It’s too hard to compute. (See problems related to self-driving cars for example.)

The four facets of information are physical access, detectability, physical inscription, and speed. You may learn more about them from your computer if he/she/they, it has been sufficiently programmed.

In summation of Robots being smarter than humans, we are better also at repetitive tasks, except perhaps using syntax, as we have no carpel tunnel that might become syndromic.

In fact, robots are not subject to any injury or disease. And don’t believe the notions about robots taking over the world. Repeat after me. Don’t believe ….

Salvador Dali Exhibit – The Art Institute of Chicago – March 2, 2023

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Salvador Dali’s paranoiac-critical method is described as the “spontaneous method of irrational knowledge based on the critical and systematic objectivity of the associations and interpretations of delirious phenomena.” It sounds like drugs were involved.

I understand the definition about as well as I do the paintings themselves, like that his William Tell is really Vladimir Lenin. And his melting clocks are the “camembert of time”, “symbols for the lack of meaning and fluidity of time in the dream world.” Sounds like Einstein meets Freud meets Nietzsche and results in a Julia Child four-dimensional soufflé with an Oedipus complex.

Cheese is a common theme at the exhibit, as the Venus de Milo in Drawers (not in the sense of pants) is accompanied by the story of Dali’s first meeting Harpo Marx, who at the time was naked in a garden feeding a statue of the Venus de Milo made of cheese (don’t know if it was camembert) to a swan. Sounds like more drugs were involved.

But the painting that grabbed my attention was Mae West’s Face Which May be Used as a Surrealist Apartment, and not just for the missing comma after Face.

The Supreme Court is about decide a case appealed from a 2021 judgement declaring that Andy Warhol had no right to appropriate Lynn Goldsmith’s photo of Prince. If the Andy Warhol Foundation loses, the Mae West painting, which was based on a film ad, may, if permission was not granted at the time, be one of many museum pieces of art to fall like dominos if considered derivative, rather than transformative, a legal distinction unrelated to robots that can change their shapes.

Lego Earth Day – February 22, 2023

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In placing the final tile, I beat the April 22nd anniversary of Earth Day by two months, though, interestingly enough, if you go to the extensive website at earthday.org you can’t find that date mentioned anywhere, which I guess is their way of saying that every day is Earth Day.

And, by the way, I constructed the whole thing, including the globe and stand, despite numerous 21st century distractions, in less than the proverbial six days, when there was no streaming internet, just saying.

Noting that great power comes with great responsibility, I am taking special care in regard to my creation, lest it meet the same fateful path as its biblical inspiration. So, in an effort to reduce the possibility of Lego global warming, my first act is to light it only with LED bulbs.

Second, because a new study, published recently in Nature Reviews Earth and Environment, shows that global atmospheric dust has a slight overall cooling effect on the planet, I’ve stopped dusting and vacuuming.

Third, I am cutting back on carbon dioxide emissions in my home, which means not only restricting use of gas appliances, but also only exhaling once a day. Due to all the dust accumulating since invoking the rule above, this isn’t a problem, as I now only chance inhaling once a day also.

If all else fails, I’ve placed my earth in close proximity to possible escape vehicles.

The Earth – February 19, 2023

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If you’ve ever wondered what the middle of our planet looks like – are there giant creatures and a big lake like in Journey to the Center of the Earth? – here’s a perfect recreation that I’ve assembled, demonstrating, once and for all, that there is a wheel and a couple of tires that turn our orb on its axis, but clearly no prehistoric animals, no duck, and no James Mason.

This inner mechanism eventually will be hidden from view, just as it is in the simulated computer game model we live on, once I bring forth the continents, emerging not from continuous tectonic activity over millions of years, but rather in a matter of days from the remaining plastic bags in the box sent to me by the almighty creator – Lego.

It’s ironic that the oceans also are contained in these bags, whereas, in the world as we know it, it’s just the opposite, most of the plastic is contained in the oceans.

My earth will have labels affixed to the land masses and oceans, a practice that, if followed by the nations of the world, might help prevent future balloons from wandering off course. And, given the 6500 plus satellites currently orbiting our home, solar powered traffic lights in the exosphere might not be a bad idea.

Toni Stone – Goodman Theatre – February 16, 2023

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The program states that Toni Stone was the first woman to play as a regular on an American big-league professional baseball team, while at the same time parenthetically admitting that the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League preceded her achievement. Huh? I guess they meant to say to play on a men’s professional baseball team.

According to a plaque in the Baseball Hall of Fame, Stone, while first, was one of twelve Black women who played in the Negro Leagues because they were denied the chance to play in the women’s league. It’s Toni’s story, so we never heard about the others.

Except for the audience’s imagination, the set was the infield and scoreboard of a baseball diamond, which starts out as a nice visual, but then mostly provides the backdrop for a series of interspliced scenes attempting to depict game action, while actually adding nothing. As with movie monsters, things that aren’t seen are often the most powerful depictions.

Of course, the play isn’t really about baseball, and the second act provided some needed visual variety by ingeniously using the bleachers to simulate the bus used by the team, with home plate as the steering wheel.

And Stone’s interactions with Millie, conceptualized as being away from the field, were the best thing in the show.

If the object of the play was to make me curious about Toni Stone, it succeeded. If it was to add to the conversation about the various issues it addressed, then I would suggest that it worked the pitcher to a full count, but struck out swinging, with the bases loaded. Wait til next year.

I am a Camera – Porchlight Music Theatre – Feb. 9, 2023

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In 1951 Walter Kerr famously reviewed I am a Camera with three words – Me no Leica. So perhaps it’s no wonder that the show has never been revived on Broadway.

Having recently seen Porchlight’s still-running, fabulous production of Cabaret, the classic musical that sprang from Camera, I was curious to view the original play (which is, of course, why it was presented as part of the Porchlight Revisits series at this time and despite the fact that it’s not itself a musical). As the guy sitting next to me said, how did they have the vision to turn this play into Cabaret?

The legendary Julie Harris won her first of five Tonys for her depiction of Sally Bowles in Camera. She must have delivered a supernatural performance to convince the voters to care even a little bit about the character. I sure didn’t. Fortunately, the Isherwood self-portrait, which is the centerpiece, picks up some of the slack, and the acting all around was excellent.

Still, I kept wondering whether the unseen interactions between the secondary characters of Fritz and Natalia might not have been more interesting to watch than was the banal relationship between Sally and her mother, which seemed rather beside the point of the second act.

Trio Gaia – Dame Myra Hess Concert – February 8, 2023

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This is the first Dame Myra Hess Concert I‘ve attended since Classical Music Chicago (CMC) switched venues three years ago, from the Chicago Cultural Center to the Seventeenth Church of Christ, Scientist, which I previously had walked past more times than there are stars in the sky, but had always been hesitant to enter, for fear that I would be struck down by lightning.

The sky’s were clear today so I took a chance. I was a little late, so I had to take the elevator, instead of the stairs, up to the back of the auditorium, lest the presumptuously-named, but nevertheless talented, Trio Gaia (the mother of all life if you’ve forgotten your Edith Hamilton) become the Quartet Cacophony by my inadvertent addition.

The concerts at the Cultural Center were always packed. This one was not. According to the Church’s website, the auditorium seats 800 and “semi-circle seating enables audience to see and hear one another.”  Fortunately no one was testing the auditory part of that statement, but I was pleased to be able to see everyone, as it allowed me to count the nicely spread-out crowd at 165 while enjoying the Beethoven.

Cabaret – Porchlight Music Theatre – January 20, 2023

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What good is sitting alone in your room when you could be at Porchlight’s terrific production of Cabaret?  It’s well worth the money, money, money that makes the world go around.  

Come hear the music play. The band is great. Your table’s waiting, if you sit in the front row.  They’ll be happy to see you and you’ll be happy to see the extremely talented cast, assembled and directed by Michael Weber, and aided by some wild, wonderful, wanton, choreography provided by Brenda Didier to demonstrate the dance of the decadent, dysfunctional, divisive decade depicted.

I particularly want to highlight Josh Walker as the Emcee and Erica Stephan as Sally Bowles, iconic roles that these two performers give great justice to, just as justice is not given to the lives of the characters around them.

I’d never seen Walker perform before and thought I hadn’t seen Stephan either until I realized I saw her recently as Miss Scarlett in Clue, a quite different type of femme fatale. That show could have used the ovation-inducing singing and dancing she displays at the Kit Kat Club. 

Friday Noon Concert – Fourth Presbyterian Church – January 6, 2023

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When you can’t tell the difference between the musician warming up and the performance itself, you know you’re in trouble. Imagine watching NBA players taking three steps, without dribbling, before dunking. Surely you wouldn’t confuse that practice routine with game action, when they take four steps, without dribbling, before dunking.

Anyway, I didn’t stay for the whole concert, but still appreciated the fact that I can cross two more composers off my imaginary list. I’m sure the cellist played Amy Heo’s When It Falls in the manner in which it was intended, but to me it sounded like a really bad version of the signals we might send to dissuade an unfriendly group of aliens attempting to land at Devils Tower National Monument.

As for Amy Wurtz’s Songs and Dances, I’m thinking about suing, based on false advertising, for the emotional distress caused me by hearing music that could not possibly be the foundation for any terpsichorean movement I’ve ever seen. The second part, entitled Spitfire, was anything but. Perhaps I was oblivious to an ironical message, but ran for the door anyway, which was perhaps unfortunate, as my later research revealed that the two closing selections I missed, by other composers, I might have enjoyed. They shouldn’t have buried the lede, just the opening music.

My AARP Culture Tour – December 10-18, 2022

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It had been four years since I’d seen the Joffrey Ballet’s much-heralded production of The Nutcracker, so I decided to go for a double dose of Tchaikovsky, through the good graces of the retiree’s best friend, AARP, though online, not in person.

First I watched The Royal Ballet’s very traditional version. Everyone was extremely talented, ho-hum. Then I watched The Hip Hop Nutcracker. OMG. So much more fun. And while I acknowledge the fact that the ballet dancers showed off an impressive variety of leaps and jumps (or whatever they’re called in French), the “contemporary dance spectacle” was, well, spectacular (though I could have lived without the mercifully short DJ scratching at the beginning and end of the program).

I remember being in New York years ago, and coming upon a group of break dancers on one of the corners leading into Central Park. I was mesmerized by their athleticism. And they were “just” street performers, ad libbing for spare change (now everyone on the street takes Venmo). The members of the Hip Hop Nutcracker troupe showed off not just their gymnastic abilities, but also their dance moves, and acting, including comedic, chops.

Speaking of which, I also need to mention the AARP online presentation a week earlier of Jane Austen’s Emma: The Musical. I’ve never read the book (or any of Austen’s others), but I have seen the movie Clueless (sort of like Forbidden Planet in lieu of The Tempest). Anyway, the play was quite entertaining, featuring a charming score and a couple of dynamite leading ladies.

If any of this sounds interesting, register to watch Swan Lake at the Bolshoi on February 5.