Life's A Musical - Only In New York

What do YOU know about New York? Have you visited? Have you lived there? I have! What do you think of when a friend tells you that they met someone from New York? A pleasant, happy go lucky individual who will go out of his way to help?

It's true that most consider New Yorkers as a bit stand-offish, and I can tell you that, for the most part, it's earned. After all, you don't hear the challange: "got a problem with that?" said very often anywhere else in the world – unless maybe France. But, there is Central Park, and Macy's and Gimbal's and about the highest concentration of difference-tolerant carbon-based organisms found anywhere in the galaxy!

I mean, there was a reason that the "Men In Black" story could only have its setting in New York – it's the only place in the world where the story would be believable! I mean, alien creatures living completely unnoticed amongst the population? Really… they were aliens not wizards like in England.

So, what would happen in, let's say, Salt Lake or Mesquite, if you were in a food court and literally everyone except you broke into a chorus of Handel's Messiah? Or, broke into an opera about passing them a napkin? … Would YOU simply fake it and join in so you weren't the only one left out?

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Godspeed Endeavour

Finally, after several delays, the spaceship Endeavour left the Cape Canaveral starting blocks for its final voyage to the International Space Station. Its 16 day journey to outfit the Space Station with the long awaited Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer began with a lunge toward the clouds upon the command of the Auto-sequencer which controlled the thousands of "double-checks" and switch-throws necessary during the last nine minutes before the sparks started flying.

The six lucky astronauts' families watched from the roof of the launch control center as the clouds swallowed the ship mere moments after the launch, leaving them stunned silent from the site. Congresswoman Gifford (the commander's wife) made her second trip to the cape from her rehab hospital stay in order to participate in the event and said "Good stuff… good stuff" as her husband flew toward the stars.

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GEO-tography: Imaginary Friends

Ya know… I've been occasionally posting series of photographs which highlight the Offroad. And while at first they were just a collection of photographs that I liked to look at, once I posted them I realized from emails how many others enjoyed them as well.

All of them have as a common denominator… well… geology. But the ones that catch my eye either, as Ansel Adams said, just were because the photographer was "standing in the right place," or they are particularly well shot OR they are unusual in some way.

I noticed that I was accumulating a few of one type, such that it would nearly make a post – so here they are. The technique of capturing excitement and action in still photographs is called "sequence photography."

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Motocross - Rodeo - Golf: A Great Day For Scenic Arizona

Except for watching the accomplishments and joy of a couple of people I cared about, I never have cared much about motorcycle sports — too noisy. But this weekend was a great one for Scenic Arizona.

Charlie told me that they must have "relaxed" their tight monitoring of non-street-legal machines a bit this weekend in Scenic because of the "race." When I didn't know what he was talking about he explained that this was the weekend for a "Buzzard" race – whatever that means.

He said that it seemed like it was a couple of times a year when hundreds…

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Entertainment: Hale Centre Theater - "Curtains"

Wow! What a theatrical experience! However… my Tensor Tympani is still in lactic acidosis from the workout.

As soon as the "disclaimer" announcer came on before the curtain went up and was unintelligibly buried behind the over-modulated "background" music — I knew we had drawn the 'punk-rocker' audio man who had blown out his cochlea on heavy-metal.

I just wish that the producer/directors/sound designers (Sally Dietlein/Jennifer Hohl/Dan Morgan) would interject some form of standardization or quality control into their sound design. We go from crack-all-your-fillings in Treasure Island to the magnificent audio of Scarlet Pimpernell and things in-between – all in one Hale Center Theater season.

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Entertainment: Hale Centre Theater - The Scarlet Pimpernel"

Disport, diversion, entertainment - no matter what you call it, at least the latest production at Hale Center Theater fits the description.

As the house lights dimmed, it was obvious that the child size carousel on the focal point of the circular stage was already stage lit; and with the million dollar stage it was easy to make the whole parquet floor, on which it rested, rotate so "Marguerite" could enter and begin her opening sopranic solo.

At the second verse however, just as the music swelled, the entire stage rising (or audience sinking) to reveal a full size duplicate of the carousel complete with Elizabethan costumed riders, signaled that we were in for a "wild ride" (if only the audio didn't drive us out).

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Entertainment: Hale Centre Theater "Hello Dolly"

After the marginally directed and acted play "Treasure Island," the Hale Center Theater has done a lot to redeem itself in the production of Hello Dolly - a true "classic" based upon Thorton Wilder's book "the Matchmaker."

The T/Th/S cast was superb, to a tee. I heard "Barbara Streisand" a couple of times when Dolly Levi went on in her rapid fire way; but, not when she sang her numbers - I didn't want to, Jennifer Hohl was doing just fine, thank you very much.

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Microsoft XBox 360: Meet Milo

In a previous post I mentioned about Microsoft's Project Natal for the XBox 360, their answer to the Wii.

One of the first applications (game?) for the new system has been developed by a UK company. They presented it at a recent developers conference "behind closed doors" but it seems that "somebody" had a camera and leaked?

Remember that as a teenager you are in the last stage of your life when you will be happy to hear the phone is for you.”
Fran Leibowitz

Milo is an interactive, life-like boy who can recognize and display emotions by using face recognition and visual cues of body language in addition to his ability to recognize voice.

I've embedded the video below. I think it's worth the download wait and is quite good resolution so you can expand it to fill your whole screen.

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Microsoft Natal Project

When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "what's the first thing you say to yourself?"
"What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say, Piglet?"
"I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet.
Pooh nodded thoughtfully.
"It's the same thing," he said.”
a.a.Milne

The weather has been a bit blustery this week at the summer snowbird headquarters in Herriman so more than the usual amount of time has been spent sitting in front of the computer.

Pediatricians, for at least 30 years that I know of, have been worrying (and warning) about the "boob-tube" syndrome occurring in anyone who spends more than a few hours a week in front of the tube. Certainly there currently is an epidemic of obesity in children.

Some of that may change, at least a bit, with a new development from Microsoft: Project "Natal." Competitively, this is the MS "one-upsmanship" to the "Wii" game platform. Technologically, it could prove to be one of the rare "quantum leaps" in our culture. The computer equivalent to what George Lucas did to the movie industry by the release of "Star Wars."

This video takes a bit of time to download, so be patient. It is worth the wait to be able to see it in "High Quality." There is another video describing one of the first to be available applications for X-Box "Natal"; but, that will be saved for a future post.



Anything to get them little arms and legs up and a-movin'.

Entertainment: Hale Center Theater's "Treasure Island"

Salt Lake City's Hale Centre Theater (HCT) is producing Robert Lewis Stevenson's Treasure Island on the "West End."

They have flooded their multi-million dollar, rotating, hydraulic stage to do it. Really! When the pirate on the cliff gets shot he falls into a ten foot deep pool and doesn't come up! and gets at least ten seats wet! No kiddin'.

There was so much handwriting on the wall that even the wall fell down.”
Christopher Morley

Once inside the theater you see that most of you have come inside through the mouth of a cave. Their "round" theater was the jungle island leaving the "round" stage to be the masted sailing ship… and did I say all of the stage entrance pits were the OCEAN!

A bit unfortunately, all this water sets the stage for the "Perfect Storm."
You may remember from the book that several storm qualities, in and of themselves more of a problem than a disaster, occurred at the same time causing "resonance" and a major catastrophe.

Those of you who have frequented HTC productions understand that occasionally they have an audio-technician who, perhaps, takes his gang-banger music a bit too seriously and cranks the sound up so you can hear it outside. I've mentioned it before.

And, occasionally they have a director who seems to only understand one method of displaying anger, displeasure, pique, miffed, upset, rage, etc., etc. — and that is to scream! ALL lines are delivered like that, and the constant bombardment wears one down.

Now, Squire Trewlawney and Dr. Livesey were the exceptions to the statement, they showed a good range of emotion and controlled anger in their performance; but they had almost no lines! [We saw the Tue, Thur, Sat performance]

L. John Silver, with his gravelly pirates voice, and Jim Hawkins pretty much shouted their lines the entire performance. Silver trying to project a character dialect and Jim... well, possibly just inexperienced theatricality.

When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I've never tried before.”
Mae West

These three issues magnified each other to the point that our ears bled. By the intermission, my head ached and ears rung and I wasn't anxious to see any more. Mom wanted to leave but dad, who wears earphones and can turn down the volume, wasn't anxious to do that.

Mom decided that she would sit on the soft chairs in the lobby and we went back in. I can say, however, that the second act was better than the first … it was shorter! Mom said that despite the hallways, curtains and doors - she could still hear the screaming in the lobby.

Overall- NOT something that we would pay to go see again, or take people we liked; but, did I mention that they filled the stage with water?!

Diversion: Large Hadron Super-Collider

The past two weeks have brought out the inner geek in me for some reason, probably because of the NASA STS-125 mission to service the Hubble Telescope which I seem to have watched pretty much without coming up for air.

There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says "Morning, boys. How's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes "What the hell is water?”
David Wallace, Kenyon College

Whenever I get a bit down in the dumps over what seems like the entire economy being taken over by mere "kids," I like to remind myself that I can hold my own in any conversation with such a "wet behind the ear" babe-in-arms by merely switching the conversation with "I was there when color television was invented."

If they have really piqued my ire, I don't stop there but continue with: streamline telephones, 8-track tapes, microwave cookers... etc. I can go on for... minutes. What they don't realize is that I'm just rounding my half-way point when I get to: "I saw the first man land on the moon" let alone "watched Hubble be launched."

Today I went to pick up my ATV cargo bag which I had dropped off at Kirkham's Outdoor Products in Salt Lake City to have its zipper clasp changed - a 3 minute job while I waited for the lady last year - and costing under $5. This year I got a skaggly, unconcerned old guy who claimed they were "too busy" and I had to come back two days later. The pique started while I sat looking at some trail maps and watched him sit behind the counter merely chatting with two other employees for over 30 minutes — too lazy to provide customer service.

What is Man? Man is a noisome bacillus whom Our Heavenly Father created because he was disappointed in the monkey.”
Mark Twain

So, I came back today for pickup and thank heavens the curmudgeon was NOT there; but, in his place was... a kid! He couldn't find my paperwork so he said he would "assume" it was "still at the factory" and I should come back! Absolutely stunned by the incompetence of his sentence, it took me awhile to begin calmly discussing "assumptions" (among other things) until he did, indeed, find my bag by merely getting off his butt; but, also a price tag 400% higher than last year.

I've learned that rather than loose my cool it's usually easier to merely ask to speak to the manager, and unexpectedly he seemed to welcome my suggestion. I discovered why when the manager appeared... another kid, and he looked like he could be the first kids "little brother"!
…
At any rate, sometimes, I guess, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. I found a video put out by a "kid" who has had enough gumption to get a job as a scientist at the CERN Large Hadron Super-collider. You probably know that, after years of construction, it has just recently been finished and has just sent its first beam of particles through the ring. The video seems rather skillfully constructed and if you are going to watch it I would suggest that you select "watch in High Quality." Happy Hubble!

Disport: Hale Centre Theater "Phantom"

For several years we have obtained season tickets to Salt Lake City's Hale Centre Theater - HTC to those in "the know." We had seats yesterday for the afternoon performance of their latest show.

Disport: To occupy oneself with amusement or diversion.”

From its early beginnings as the local mom and pop "Hale Family Theater," it went big time when it expanded to a multi-million dollar facility on the "West Side" a few years ago.

One the one hand, trying to succeed in theater in a culture, who equates the term "locally produced" with years and years of church "road shows," is no small feat. Their productions often "stun" patrons, who then exit the theater with looks of incredulity muttering "where did they get all these out of town professionals."

On the other hand, the professionalism of the HTC campus seems, in some ways, to perplex even its owners and employees as well. For example, they haven't, even at this late date, figured out how to provide customer service at the concession stand. The rotunda was crowded, they had already begun seating, and there were probably 20 of us forming an impromptu line in front of the counter where two gals seemed to be busying themselves gossiping with someone they knew.

A lady at the front of the line asked one of the girls when they would begin selling, as it didn't look like they had any intention of doing it soon, and was condescendingly told "soon." Well, "soon" came and went several times before they finally took the first order, then acted like they were "making it up" as they went along. Clearly they haven't figured out the "concession part" of the business in the many years I've been going there.

On the other hand, "where did they get all that talent?" Many incredible voices sang their hearts out - (and even the audio guy seemed to have achieved enlightenment in running the volume knob so as not to cause our ears to bleed.)

On the other hand, if YOU, like me, jumped to the conclusion that the production's music would have been written by Andrew Lloyd Webber; then, YOU, like me would have been very confused as the play began. This was "Phantom" (by Arthur Kopit and Maury Yeston) NOT "Phantom of the Opera" (by Andrew Lloyd Webber, Charles Hart and Richard Stilgoe).

The HTC playbill was almost identical to Webber's (perhaps deliberately so) but this was an "Operetta." I'm sure they surmised that if they would have publicized that fact they would have had empty seats.

If you never have,
You should.
These things are fun,
And fun is good.”
Dr. Suess

Now, I like musicals, understand operetta's and can even tolerate some opera's; but, unfortunately, these very professional quality singers were plying their craft on instantly forgettable songs. I couldn't even remember one melody as I left the theater.

On the other hand, the story-line you couldn't forget even if you tried — it was... odd! The antagonist in this version was not so much the "Phantom" but the farcically played, wannabe-diva, musical director's wife, Carlotta.

On the other hand, the fingernail-on-the-chalkboard, annoyingly-theatrical performance that she gave must have been good, for the audience applauded when the Phantom killed her.

And, on the last hand, as expected, their highest paid performer (the million dollar, hydraulic stage) not only worked flawlessly but was so overwhelmingly professional that it makes any HTC production worth seeing... operetta or not!