Jasmine Lin and Joseph Genualdi (violins), Paula Kosower (cello) and Bradley Opland (double bass) – Chicago Cultural Center – April 2, 2018

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There’s a long tradition of classical musicians wearing black (see http://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/musicians-black-concert-dress/), so I’m used to seeing all the members of an orchestra, or string quartet, dressed in black (as they were today), but I started thinking more about it when Opland entered for the second half of the program, wearing not only a black suit, but also a black hat, which together made him look like he’d just come from a gig with the Blues Brothers.

Though I like the suggestion that wearing black reduces the need to clean the clothes, I also like that idea that black clothes limit the amount of distraction, but not for the obvious reason. I think it should be done out of consideration for anyone in the audience who has chromesthesia, and thus perceives colors from sound (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromesthesia). If the musicians are dressed in other than black, the chromesthesiac (?) may see colors based upon the music that clash with the color of the clothes.

Continuing the “what are they wearing” theme, I noticed that none of the musicians had on wedding bands. That got me to wondering again about custom, which led me to a web page that includes a conversation among violinists about wearing or not wearing rings while playing their instruments (http://www.violinist.com/discussion/archive/13515/).

The music itself was beautiful, my favorite part being when Opland, who plays with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, was given a bass solo during the allegro movement of Rossini’s Sonata #6. He extensively tapped the instrument, and though he was clearly improvising some of it (not your typical classical program), it led me to wonder about notation for tapping, which led me to a user’s manual for the orchestra, which, unlike most user’s manuals, is reasonably intelligible (see second item down on http://andrewhugill.com/manuals/bass/extended.html – be sure to watch the video).

Near the end of his solo, Opland permitted Lin, after some back and forth playfulness, to pluck one of his strings (not a metaphor). I’m relatively certain that there’s no notation for that.

The Nerdologues Presents: Your Stories: Cast Away Edition – American Writers Museum – March 30, 2018

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We missed some of the Nerdologues program out of fair-weather fan loyalty to the Loyola basketball team, watching the entirety of their defeat at the hands of Michigan. I didn’t mind showing up late, as the Nerdologues program was scheduled to last three hours, which seems like too much of anything, except Lawrence of Arabia, which flawlessly clocks in at 3 hours and 48 minutes. (How did Peter O’Toole not win the Best Actor Oscar?)

We got to the program at intermission, which was perfect timing. It gave us a chance to have a conversation with Kevin Turk, one of the founders of International Tom Hanks Day (ITHD), which was being celebrated by the Nerdologues in this special edition of their weekly podcasts.

Kevin gave us the history of ITHD, how it started as a college keggger, an excuse to drink and watch movies all night. Four years in, Hanks found out about it and the rest is history, as the event has turned into an annual charity fundraiser. The night’s raffle prize was a DVD of Saving Mr. Banks, which the Nerdologues made fun of, but I admit I liked, which must put me on the extreme edge of nerdom.

Attendance was sparse, probably due to the mystical convergence of Holy Saturday, Passover, and the Final Four. Instead of hearing serious stories handed down from generation to generation for thousands of years (or in the Loyola Ramblers’ case, 55 years), we heard four storytellers, three of whom were very funny as they related first-hand experiences of ramblin’ man road trips and raunchy parties (the fourth merely rambled on incoherently).

We also heard a few songs, including one that included a nice Roy Orbison impression, and one that featured someone playing a melodica, a wind-powered portable keyboard instrument that looked like a tricked-up hookah (see picture).

Nell Scovell – Chicago Ideas – March 28, 2018

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Even with her marital tie to the movie industry (in case you’ve been living in a cave the last five years, her husband is George Lucas), well-known president of Ariel Investments Mellody Hobson, who described herself as a geek in designer clothes, seemed like an odd choice to interview comedy writer Nell Scovell until Hobson informed the audience that the two of them were close friends who spend a lot of time together.

They got to know each other when Sheryl Sandberg asked Hobson to write a chapter on race and owning who you are for Lean In for Graduates. Scovell had cowritten Lean In with Sandberg, who asked her to work with Hobson on her chapter in the second book.

As Hobson tells it, upon submitting her chapter, Scovell called to tell her that she and Sandberg had two things in common, they were both really smart and they both were terrible writers. This made me wonder whether Scovell might have ghostwritten Sandberg’s forward to Scovell’s book Just the Funny Parts: … And a Few Hard Truths About Sneaking into the Hollywood Boys’ Club.

The book, as the title indicates, is about more than the funny parts. Scovell has long been a behind-the-scenes talent, well-known in the industry for her comedy writing for many television shows. She even has worked with Barack Obama, for whom, Hobson emphasized, Scovell wrote for White House Correspondents’ Dinners, not a State of the Union Address.

But Scovell made a public name for herself when she wrote a 2009 Vanity Fair essay, “Letterman and Me,” (https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2009/10/david-letterman-200910) that discussed issues relating to the employment and treatment of women in the late-night talk show arena.

Like the book, the interview covered both the funny and the serious. Her discussion of humor ranged as far as quoting the opening line of the novel Scaramouche – “He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.” Scaramouche, a buffoon character in the commedia dell’arte, is, of course, not to be confused with Anthony Scaramucci, who was White House Communications Director for 10 days.

Plantation! – Lookingglass Theater – March 25, 2018

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The Lookingglass Theater has accurately promoted Plantation! as being FUN-comfortable. The audience laughed a lot, even while occasionally squirming in their seats at the subject matter, though the squirming at the end of the play (spoiler alert) was more in response to the need for something, anything, to happen on stage.

In honor of Plantation! director David Schwimmer, the young girl sitting next to me was wearing a Friends t-shirt. Schwimmer was in attendance, hiding in plain sight with a baseball cap pulled down to partially conceal that part of his face that wasn’t covered by two weeks of neatly trimmed beard.

Based on past experience, I probably wouldn’t have spotted Schwimmer, even without the cap and beard, if not alerted by the girl sitting next to me’s father (I once failed to recognize a sports and television celebrity sitting naked next to me on a health club locker room bench, or so I was later told).

Other than me, I think everyone noticed Schwimmer right away as he made his way to the back of the house to watch the play, but I sensed from his appearance that he wanted you to pretend not to recognize him (ergo pseudo incognito), at least until after the show, when I saw him shaking hands with patrons. (David, if you’re reading this, please tell the author that I have a better idea for the ending of the play.)

I love the flexibility of the Lookingglass Theater space. It’s a chameleon, constantly changing the dimensions and positioning of the stage and modifying the seating arrangement, never appearing the same way twice. On other occasions I’ve ridden on the Pequod, sat on both sides of Alice’s lookingglass, and been in the middle of the Chicago fire. If the space were sitting naked next to me on a locker room bench, I probably wouldn’t recognize it.

Rachel Lee Priday (violin) and David Kaplan (piano) – Chicago Cultural Center – March 21, 2018

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As promoted (and mentioned in last week’s blog), this concert was streamed live on Facebook, in furtherance of which cameras were positioned around the room, but no camera operators, not even robotic ones as has been the trend in television for some time (see https://www.thebroadcastbridge.com/content/entry/823/cost-cutting-boosts-the-use-of-robots-in-television-studios).

This wasn’t a basketball game, where the camera has to follow the action. Here there was static action. Okay, that’s a contradiction (though I like the way it sounds). I mean the musicians didn’t run or jump around the room, but their fingers, hands, and arms moved, and quite skillfully I might add, magically creating music were there had been none (only notes on paper), as beautiful as a three on two fast break ending in a thunderous dunk or a last second Hail Mary (or in Loyola’s case, hail 98-year-old Sister Jean Dolores-Schmidt) shot that drives another nail into my March Madness bracket coffin.

This week I went back to sitting on stage left, concerned that last week’s sheet music incident (see blog on Patrycja Likos and Yana Reznik) may somehow have been my fault, caused by my having sat stage right for a change. Moving back was the first step in my attempt to apply the scientific method to determine causation.

The Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts are produced by the International Music Foundation. Following the concert, I introduced myself to the foundation’s Executive Director, who, I assume, in the spirit of P.T. Barnum (there’s no such thing as bad publicity) and Oscar Wilde (the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about) welcomed the idea of my continuing to blog about the concerts, which is what I do. So here I am.

Martin Amis – American Writers Museum -March 20, 2018

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Martin Amis, a British novelist and essayist, was introduced as being qualified to speak at the American Writers Museum by virtue of his having lived in Brooklyn the last seven years. The room was full. I don’t think anyone cared where he lived.

He opened by telling us that Brits don’t go to listen to authors, that if your brother had just written a number one bestseller and was next door talking about it, you wouldn’t go. Perhaps that’s why Amis moved to Brooklyn.

He then read from his latest book, The Rub of Time, a collection of past pieces. The headline from The Guardian review of the book said it’s “brilliant, except when it’s not.” That’s the way I felt about Amis. His choice of passages to read was odd, given that a lot of what he read consisted not of his own writing, but of quotes from Donald Trump. That would be like Tina Fey simply reciting a Sarah Palin speech. Oh, wait.

Amis extolled the virtues of Melville’s Billy Budd, which caused a man behind me to suggest that there should have been a spoiler alert before Amis revealed the book’s ending. Given that the book was published in 1924, it made me wonder what the statute of limitations is on spoiler alerts.

A man in front of me asked a question that led Amis to suggest that a certain man in the news didn’t have sex with a certain woman, but rather engaged in some behavior in her presence not seen twice in human history. My imagination was at a loss, but I laughed anyway.

Amis’s favorite authors are Bellow and Nabokov, though Amis suggested that Nabokov wrote four too many novels involving 12-year-old girls (out of the seven such novels he wrote). Seven! It seems like one should have been enough. (I remember walking into a college interview with a copy of Lolita in hand to read while in the waiting room. Nothing like making a good first impression.)

Louder Than a Mom – Martyr’s – March 19, 2018

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I went to see my former storytelling teacher (see my January blog about the class) tell a story, proving beautifully, at least in her case, that those who teach, also can do. Martyr’s is the fourth different venue I have been to for storytelling. Four down, a hundred zillion to go.

The quality of the storytelling was high and the humor was rampant. Not knowing how crowded it would be, my friends and I got there two hours before showtime. No one else showed up for another hour. This allowed us to get the full attention of the waitress and acclimate ourselves to the almost complete lack of lighting in the venue. It’s not a good place to go if you have cataracts. Our smart phone flashlights really came in handy for reading the limited menu.

Next time I’ll eat somewhere else first. They didn’t even have mustard, though at least, unlike the restaurant the night before, they weren’t out of chicken. We all agreed that ketchup on chicken was a nonstarter, although the waitress said she has witnessed it. Perhaps she can get counseling for that trauma.

My former teacher, MT, introduced us to one of the hosts of the event, Kate, who encouraged us to tell a story at a future event. Though one of my friends and I were two of perhaps six men, one of whom was the bartender, at this well-attended event, Kate assured us that we would be welcome additions and that you don’t need to be a mom to participate. In fact, one of the eight speakers that night was a man, though his story was about the birth of his child, so, you know, kind of a mom story. Actually, he gets a pass on that as his story was about how ugly newborns are. (If you need a refresher on the Seinfeld episode, the Hamptons, about a “breathtaking” baby, you can find the script at http://www.seinfeldscripts.com/TheHamptons.htm).

Kate Moore – American Writers Museum – March 18, 2018

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We didn’t know Kate Moore was British (after all, we were at the American Writers Museum and her book was about Americans) until she opened her mouth to reveal a delightful accent and to tell us she was from “across the pond.”

She spoke nonstop for an hour about her book, The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women, providing personal details about the women’s lives, while also discussing their place in history as it relates to discoveries about the effects of radium poisoning and changes in occupational disease labor law.

Leonard Grossman Jr., the son of the lawyer who represented some of the women in their battle against their employer, was at the museum for the program. He has an interesting website with scans of original newspaper articles about the women from the 1920s and 30s.

Though I usually prefer going to hear authors who have something humorous to say, all the authors I’ve seen at the museum perform a very important function for me. They give me something to talk about at parties, making me sound well-read, without actually having to read anything.

With this important function in mind, I’m heading back to the museum to see Martin Amis discuss The Rub of Time.  Last time I looked, he was also British. But his publisher describes him as “acidly funny”, so I’m back on safe ground.

After listening to Moore, we went to dinner at Howells and Hood, which wouldn’t be significant except to note that we both ordered chicken dishes and the waiter came back a few minutes later to tell us they were out of chicken! According to the National Chicken Council, the average American ate over 91 pounds of chicken last year . So you’d think a restaurant would be prepared for the likelihood of someone ordering chicken. At least they didn’t try to substitute something else lying around the kitchen that “tastes like chicken.”

 

Patrycja Likos (Cello) and Yana Reznik (Piano) – Chicago Cultural Center – March 14, 2018

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Just when I thought I might not have anything more to write about the weekly Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts, a previously unseen episode of Sid Caesar’s Your Show of Shows broke out part way through today’s performance.

The first piece went smoothly, as did the beginning of the second. Then Reznik reached up with one hand and made a minor adjustment to the way the pages were sitting on the piano’s music stand (cause or effect, I don’t know) and then, as the page turner executed his next maneuver, the pages starting unraveling every which way, fanning out in a slapstick fashion that seemed likely to bring the performance to a crashing halt. But, as the page turner tried to restore order, sprawling akimbo like a man playing Twister, Reznik, contorting her neck to the side to read a sheet of music that was now at a 45-degree angle, played on, amazingly, seemingly flawlessly.

The fuss was such that Likos turned her head around, while also not missing a beat, and looked to see what mayhem was taking place behind her. Then, after what was probably at most 10 seconds, but seemed like an eternity, someone from the front row of the audience rose up and came to the rescue, getting the sheets under control on the right side of the piano as the page turner held up his end on the left. The audience then held its collective breath until the end of the piece.

I have seen Reznik before and she is wonderful (as is Likos), but this performance was above and beyond. How does one prepare for such mishaps? It made me think about Tiger Woods and how his father used to scream in Tiger’s backswing to enure him to the distractions he might experience on the PGA tour.

I have been asked on occasion to inform readers about future events. This is the perfect opportunity to let everyone know that next week’s concert will be streamed live on Facebook. If you can’t make it in person, you might want to check out the broadcast. Who knows, perhaps an episode of McHale’s Navy will break out during the performance.

Julia Sweeney, Older & Wider – Judy’s Beat Lounge – March 11, 2018

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We had dinner at Topo Gigio, where, fortunately, the service was a vast improvement (or we wouldn’t have made the show on time) over where I dined the night before, where we sat for an hour before the waiter brought the check, without having brought the food (picky, picky, picky), which reminded me of the Steve Martin short film, The Absent-Minded Waiter (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fsh47iNVRkM).

Judy’s Beat Lounge is a casual 56-seat space at Second City, with general, unreserved seating. We got lucky with four seats together along the side wall, with no sight line issues, even after two of the people in our group were told at the door that their tickets were for a different, prior night (oops). Fortunately the box office was willing to sell them two more tickets (very generous).

Sweeney, who is most famously known for her androgynous character Pat, as a not-ready-for-prime-time player on Saturday Night Live, has been living somewhat under the radar in a northern suburb of Chicago for the last 10 years, apparently for the sole purpose of raising an adopted daughter who provides her with an endless source of material for her routine, including the two most memorable lines of the night – one about her daughter intentionally bringing an uncomfortable dinner conversation to an abrupt end by announcing that she was experiencing a heavy flow and the other about how Sweeney’s husband started calling their daughter’s boy friend Rolf (as in The Sound of Music) in response to information about his politics.

The show is billed as a stand-up work in progress, but, except for Sweeney’s occasional glances at her notes when changing topics and occasional comments about whether a bit had worked or not, it seems ready for prime time to me.