The word's just in: they got the sound right!

This afternoon I spoke to friends who had attended the opening night performance at the Overture Center for the Arts. After reading rave reviews all morning, I was not surprised to hear them say that it was “beautiful” “spectacular” “etc” “etc.” And, they said “the sound is magnificent!”

I am glad about that. It would be terrible, terrible to invest so much in this project and not get the sound right, even though it was a gift and you can more readily forgive a gifted Center that turns out to be a clunker, in the same way you can forgive a calendar that you get as a gift for the New Year that has absolutely the worst possible motif running through it (say cats, and you hate cats, or a-joke-a-day and you fail to laugh a single time for the 365 times you turn a page).

Of course, I marvel at the ingenuity of it all: to know in advance of such a construction project that you will get the sound right. I was sitting with a group of people last week and we were marveling about things that are incomprehensible to us – like sending a fax or writing a WiFi message (choosing to ignore the fact that, of course, sending a fax is more imaginable than creating a baby that has your horrid jaw out of invisible-to-the-naked-eye genetic material) – but I think this, too deserves inclusion into the world of marvels.

Or, maybe it was tested as it was being built? Perhaps someone was hired to drop a needle every so often to see how it echoed as it fell to the concrete. Or, better yet, an opera singer came in during construction and belted out a few lines of an aria to see how it was going. Maybe the ceiling had to be tilted differently again and again until Nessun dorma! sounded exactly right – how do I know, I’m no sound expert.

And herein lies the sad truth: neither are most of the people who attend the performances at the Arts Center (unless after you pass into some strata of refinement you develop audio-sensory skills that the rest of us down there haven’t even aspired to). But I want to find out: how DO things sound in the great new hall? Does it bounce of the walls? Does it resound? Is there an echo? I am a music buff. I have attended orchestral performances since I was a pipsqueak. But I could never tell if Alice Tully Hall was an improvement over Carnegie Hall or not. It struck me as the same.

The odd thing is, it can’t matter to the younger-than-me generation of concert goers. They have their ear drums completely warped and distorted through years of attending rock concerts. And if sound mattered so much in the Orchestra Hall, why does it not matter at all at the conerts where it’s all about Volume rather than Quality? So perhaps this new Orchestra Hall is not only for those of refined pocket book, but also of refined age. I almost qualify there!

In any event, I am looking forward to listening for the new improved sound and I hope I can tell, at least as much as all these enthused non-musician patrons say they can tell. I do not really remember what it sounded like before, but famous guest artists kept coming anyway and I suspect the capacity crowds they drew couldn’t tell how horrid the sound was, marveling obtusely at the gifts and talents of the performing artists instead. How odd of us all to have done so. Now we know better. Or – at least we think we do (I’m sure I will too!!) and that’s good enough, isn’t it?

Frozen solid: nc - yes; the tomatoes - no.

Yesterday at the market I bought a box of stunningly gorgeous Harmony Valley Roma tomatoes. They are in a moment of perfection, just waiting to be par-boiled, skinned and zip-locked into the freezer for winter use. My freezer already boasts bags of Ruth’s blueberries, Blue Valley asparagus, Harmony Valley strawberries, plus organic white peach slices for the future moment when I just have to make a batch of Bellinis for a crowd of people.

Here is a twenty-four hour photo-blog progress report on the tomato project:

Waiting for inspiration. Hoping for some such moment to arrive today. So far: not yet evident on the horizon. 

Little boxes, all the same

I’ll just put forth a few quotes from an article in today’s NYT Week in Review and try hard to refrain from commenting. I am aiming for a cheerful day. No need to start a downward spiral with writing paragraphs upon paragraphs about what’s wrong with this world, or at least with what is described as our world.

(From “Kerry’s Lesson: Lambeau Rhymes With Rambo”)

The key interview in this year’s presidential campaign was not with any of the big national newspapers or newsweeklies. It was for the October issue of Field & Stream magazine. John Kerry, the Democratic challenger, gave the magazine a half-hour phone interview. [well okay, big deal] President Bush went further, granting a private tour of his Texas ranch, and a long sit-down to the editor, Sid Evans. [oh brother.]

The candidates are…courting the newest niche demographic: the rod-and-gun voter. [great.]
(They are also) after something much more basic: proving their manliness. [that just thrills me no end.]

The Republicans are working hard to portray (Kerry) as.. a “girlie man.” It seems to be working. Sports Illustrated readers overwhelmingly voted Mr. Bush the better athlete and sports fan [dumb dumb dumb readers, for this reason:], a conclusion the magazine’s managing editor, Terry McDonell, finds baffling. “Clearly Kerry is the a much much much much better athlete,” he said, noting that Mr. Kerry has long played competitive hockey and also regularly snowboards, Rollerblades, windsurfs and kite-surfs. “Kite-surfing…is the hardest, most radical thing to do…” Mr. Bush, in contrast, was a cheerleader, and not, Mr. McDonnell notes, the kind that did flips.
[then we have this long stretch of writing about the Lambeau field thing again; enough already!]

Mr. McDonnell puzzled over what all this shooting and fishing had to do with being leader of the free world….Helen Fisher, an anthropologist at Rutgers (says) [watch now, here come the boxes, little boxes, And they're all made out of ticky-tacky, And they all look just the same] “Bush wants to be seen as masculine…because masculinity is associated with assertiveness and competence and judgment and team-playing and a host of traits that men aspire to and women adore.” [No comment. Really, I just can’t. Grrrrr.]