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Grant Park Music Festival – July 14, 2021

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Once again I skipped the first half of the concert, and the correctness of my decision was supported by others telling me upon my arrival that what I had missed had been “painfully awful.“ Then they left.

No matter. I then had the pleasure of listening to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1. Unfortunately I also had the displeasure of listening to Beethoven’s biggest fan, an obnoxious guy, with the lungs of an opera singer, sitting a few rows behind me.

Mr. X, as I will call him, apparently was a drop-in (and, I’m guessing, a dropout) who didn’t know ahead of time what the program was, as suggested by his war whoop, ala an over-served soccer (excuse me, football) hooligan who was far less civilized than the Geico Neanderthal-like cavemen who were offended by their characterization in the 2004 commercials, when the conductor introduced the piece and then again after the first movement.

I then quickly moved to the other side of the seating bowl, as I fully expected him to shout out “let’s get ready to rumble” before the next movement started, which might make sense at the next concert, given that the program includes three dance episodes by Leonard Bernstein, albeit not from West Side Story, but rather On the Town, (the play, not the movie, so I will be able to visualize real dancers, not Frank Sinatra).

A Scientist Walks into a Bar – The Hideout – July 13, 2021

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March 10, 2020 was the last time I walked into the bar at The Hideout to hear a scientist. That time the room was jammed and I was attending events at one venue or another a few times a week. This time I sat outside, with a smattering of others, had to show proof of vaccination, and none of those other venues have reopened yet.

So I was excited to hear someone talk about meteorites. You take when you can get.

Maria Valdes has a PhD in Geochemistry and Cosmochemistry, which I didn’t even know existed, and is the Robert A. Pritzker Curator for Meteoritics and Polar Studies at the Filed Museum. We have so much in common. Her earliest ambition was to be a dentist. I have a dentist. As a child, she went to DNA camp. I never went to camp, but I have DNA. Her specialty is calcium isotopes. I drink milk.

She’s going on a trip to Antarctica to search for micrometeorites, because, although they’re all around us, about 5,200 metric tons of them falling to the Earth every year (she says some would probably fall out of your hair if you shook your head), they’re easier to find where they stand out against the ice and snow.

She has held in her hands, to show to bored museum donors, a part of the Black Beauty meteorite, original weight 319.8 grams, found in 2011 in the Sahara Desert, and, as of 2018, having a sales price of $10,000 per gram. I think I’ll go shake my head and see what falls out.

Grant Park Music Festival – July 9, 2021

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I timed it perfectly to arrive at a seat just as the chorus was departing its upstage loft after the first piece, as I saw no reason to have their voices interfere with the pleasure of listening to the symphony, just as I don’t like it when people in the theater talk during a performance.

I did get to see that the departing singers were masked, though not in the style of those on the television show, such as Nick Lachey as the winner Piglet in the recent finale, and probably not, unfortunately for the purpose of muting their voices like one of the brass players, whose current “normal’ placement on stage is in the same loft, so that they won’t spew viral particles on the rest of the orchestra.

I still got to listen to Barber and Brahms, without a hint of rain or the siren accompaniments of two days earlier, replaced this time by the off-key sound of overhead helicopters, and also without the hint of a cicada chorus, Chicago seemingly having been spared this year despite the fact that we have reached, per Climate Central, the necessary ground temperature and rainfall to cue their emergence.

On the way home I saw a sign for a psychic, with walk-ins welcome, and considered it for a moment, but, after peeking in the doorway, I dismissed it as a scam, as a real psychic would know that no one would want to climb two flights of steep stairs for a reading.

Grant Park Music Festival – July 7, 2021

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The Grant Park Music Festival reopened its figurative doors after over a year off, and though I chose not to attend the Fourth of July concert, which quixotically took place on July 2nd and 3rd, I declared my independence from Covid incarceration by wending my way to the park for the first “real” concert , which featured Joyce Yang entrancing the audience with her masterful rendition of Grieg’s popular Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 16, which even I attempted, fairly unsuccessfully, to play as a child, though, for years I would pound out the first three bars, and only that, whenever I had the opportunity, as a way of pretending, for anyone within earshot, that I might actually know what I was doing. (I take the preceding 123-word sentence as evidence that my brain has not completely atrophied during my forced layoff, though not necessarily evidence of any writing skills.)

The concert closed with a rousing version of Rossini’s Overture to William Tell, the conclusion of which was timed perfectly with the onset of the rain, such that the crowd’s standing ovation began with 20 seconds left in the piece, as the attendees, so unaccustomed to being in such a situation, flailed about, with no direction home, like a group of rolling stones, getting spit upon from on high.

As happy as I am that things are opening up, the timing is somewhat unfortunate, as I have just discovered Netflix’s apparently unlimited number of Turkish soap operas (dizi for the aficionados).

Rush Hour Concert – The Romantic Piano Trios – June 15, 2021

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Having survived last week’s brave new world experience of an indoor concert with masks and limited capacity, I went back to St. James Cathedral, where MingHuan Xu (violin), Alexander Hersh (cello), and Winston Choi (piano) serenaded us with lovely pieces from Robert Schumann and Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel.

I’m told that the restrictions may be taken off for next week’s concert. I’ll be pleased to go without a mask, but have a fondness for the current attendance rules, as it means that I don’t have to mingle with too many people, especially those who have come out of hibernation with an apparent insatiable need to shake hands, which is so 2019, the last time I (or anyone else?) had a cold.

I wonder if the cicada that may, depending on the weather, soon be emerging from their own dormant state (the app Cicada Safari states that periodical cicadas emerge in large numbers when the soil temperature reaches 64º F and often after a soaking rain) also will want to shake hands (or legs in their case). I might prefer that.

Chen String Quartet – Rush Hour Concert – June 8, 2021

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This week, at the St. James Cathedral, for the first time since March 10, 2020, when a scientist walked into the bar I was at and started talking about thermodynamics, I attended an indoor event at a site that wasn’t a vaccinated friend’s residence.

Clearly, the Chen family had kept practicing during The Great Lull. Even world-class musicians might lose their edge spending 16 months just sitting around eating bonbons and catching up on old episodes of My Mother the Car.

Attendance was limited to 100, in a space that can accommodate, I am told, over 400. And masks were required, though a very few people decided that the rules didn’t apply to them, and pulled theirs down when no one, except me, was looking. Apparently these attendees were special, though they looked much like anyone you might encounter on the street, just as do the aliens among us who are posing as humans and small puppies.

I must admit that wearing a mask throughout the concert did cause me to grow somewhat sleepy as I breathed in my own fumes. Perhaps I should have brought a mask from home, rather than use one I found in the garbage receptacle on the corner.

Even More Random Thoughts

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With too many people still refusing to get vaccinated, I may keep isolating, doing my own thing, and thereby obtaining the benefit of nerd immunity.

I just found out, after 15 months of continuous use, that Zoom has a “hide self view” feature, whereby others can see you, but you can’t see yourself, you know, like real life.

The birth year cutoff line for generation Alpha is 2024. Then, apparently, we move on to generation Beta, which seems like an unfair moniker that might cause millions of children to think that they are subservient and weak or merely part of a testing phase previously reserved for firstborns.

The Department of Defense’s Space Surveillance Network is currently tracking about 27,000 officially catalogued objects (space junk), as small as 2 inches in diameter, in orbit around the earth. And the number of discovered near-Earth objects (asteroids or comets that can pass within 30 million miles of earth’s orbit around the sun) is more than 20,000. But sure, there must be hundreds of flying saucers, with little green men inside, eluding us on their nightly spins around the neighborhood.

Clowning Around

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Before COVID, as my faithful readers (both of you) know, it was not uncommon for me to participate in several, disparate, cultural events in a single day, and find a way to tie them together in a logic-defying exposition.

Then, during the height of the pandemic (before my LEGO epiphany), my routine daily achievements included getting out of bed, eating, and streaming (not necessarily in that order), but not blogging, which led some followers (okay one), concerned about the communication blackout, to worry about my well-being.

I alleviated that disquietude through a chance in-person contact during today’s first big step toward normalcy, as I started this morning by helping to clean the park across the street, for which several passersby thanked me. The adulation was transformative, but not anticipated.

Not knowing in advance how successful my efforts might be, or the boatloads of praise from imperfect strangers that might be forthcoming, and concerned that my return to society be as triumphant as possible, I came out late last night and surreptitiously scattered some of my own garbage in places where only I would look for it.

Not satisfied with that one victory, today’s second adventure involved a visit to a friend’s yard sale, where, after establishing that the yard itself was not for sale, I practiced the essential skill of saying “no” that will become increasingly important as human interactions increase. The parachuting clown was tempting, but I remained strong, and left with all the cash and bitcoin that I brought with me.

A Study in Starlit

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The telescope has been separated from the shuttle and sent into orbit; the cargo bay doors have been closed; and the shuttle has jumped to warp, headed for the second star to the right, and then straight on ’til morning.

IMG_0013.jpgNow that that’s all done, I have a confession to make. I ate the last cookie. No, wait, forget I said that. I meant to say that I’ve been stringing everyone along. Not in the sense of string theory, or string cheese, but rather in that I finished building the shuttle a week ago, but didn’t want to take time away from the process to write about it.

I had no Dr. Watson to chronicle my movements. So it’s possible that some of my recollections have minor inaccuracies, or major lies. History is written by the victors.

By the way, the world record (by a human) for solving a Rubik’s cube is 3.47 seconds.

A Sticky Situation

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When I invest in LEGOs, I sign up for attaching bricks to one another, not for putting reflective stickers onto payload bay doors. (I told a fellow aficionado on a Zoom call that I had purchased the shuttle set and the only thing he wanted to know was how much trouble the stickers were.) If I wanted to play with adhesives, I would have taken up scrapbooking.

One reviewer suggested that you pace yourself when assembling this “space geek’s dream” so that you have enough energy when you get to the delicate chore involving the stickers. How about if the LEGO people just give you pieces with the stickers already on them!

IMG_0022.jpgIt’s like trying to get flypaper (no pun originally intended) off your hands. If you display the shuttle with the bay doors open, and the Hubble telescope in launch position, you might notice any misaligned stickers. If Hal closes the bay door, Dave might be in trouble, but everything else looks fine.

In any event, I shouldn’t have to deal with these kinds of details. I think I need a LEGO apprentice, someone to finish up the details for me. If Rembrandt could have help and still sign his name at the bottom, why can’t I?