It's Reunion time!

Coming to your future. 

In about three weeks time I will be joining a group of people I haven't seen, for the most part, for more than twenty years and in many cases, more than forty years. Yes, it's High School Reunion time again. I have decidedly mixed feelings about attending. What distinguishes this meet-up, besides my growing older and wider, is the playing field is somewhat more leveled by our respective ages. While we refer to ourselves and are referred to as solidly middle-aged, reaching two years shy of sixty seems a bit further along on life's journey than midpoint.

There will be those attending who have aged well. There will be those attending who have, with surgical assistance, maintained a more youthful countenance and there will be those who, suffering from a combination of ill health, genetics, plumb bad luck and questionable lifestyle choices, have crept closer to the decrepitude that comes with old age.

Dressed for Dinner.

Lest you think I'm being cynical, I can assure you, old age is not for sissies. I see examples of about once a week when I visit my mother in her nursing home. I try to time my visits around meal times. I do this for a variety of reasons. First, because it provides my son and I with an opportunity to engage others in conversation with her and we are then not bombarded with or limited to her repetitive repertoire of complaints and intimate ailment inventory. Each meal there serves as a kind of reunion of sorts. Names and faces that may have been forgotten are recalled, though they very well might have last met less than 24 hours earlier.

Some residents dress for dinner, some scream for it and some silently wait for their meals draped in their lobster bib-like accessory, mandatory dress code for both lunch and dinner. Her tablemates are an eclectic assortment of aged and infirm, joining us on their own steam supported by metal walkers or rolling in on their self-propelled four wheel carriages.

Most have trouble hearing and I wonder if after all those hours I spent at rock concerts, driving with blasting car stereos and now listening to my iPod, will have an early deteriorating effect on this most fragile sense.

In some ways it might be better. The hate speech and vitriol that fills and fuels what passes as News today frequently feels toxic. Perhaps in not being able to hear it, I might finally reach that Nivanian state of bliss, aka ignorance.

Poor little Dobby

When my mother first arrived at her new home, my son and I joined her at her first dinner. All meals are served in a spacious dining room and seating is assigned. As I stood behind her, at the next table a wizened woman who resembled Dobby, the house elf from Harry Potter, peered up at me from her power wheelchair.

"Hey", she cackled, " You're new here. Why are you here?"
"This is my mother"I explained. "She just arrived today."
"Really? Why did you bring her here of all places? This place is awful. The food is disgusting. It's a hellhole!"
"Really?"
"Yes, yes it is. How did you find this place?"
"I just googled hellhole."
"Aha hah hah."

Those hard of hearing residents in the vicinity could hear well enough to "get" my response and appreciate it. It was comforting to learn that while our hearing may fade away, a sense of humor appears to be eternal. I do hope we all bring it to the reunion.

iCarol

iCEO Jobs and his iPhone

This week we all lost too early, a brilliant and brusque visionary, Steve Jobs. Others have who knew him have written beautifully of his contributions and human foibles. I’m not going to do that. I am just going to point out his affect on me and that’s why this is iCarol.

What I’ve been thinking about is names; mine in particular and others in general. Consumer products with names like the iPhone, the Pentium Chip (see this week’s New Yorker magazine to learn more about how this name came to be.), and Kleenex exist throughout their lifetimes with occasional modifications, marketed as improvements and iterations, but we don’t get that chance. I am and was Carol. Not Carol, new and improved or Carol One or lowcal Carol.

I think that’s a huge missed opportunity for humankind. All the other Carol’s that I meet are at least 50 years old. It’s the name of an old person. It didn’t age well. I resent that. I didn’t even get to have a vote on my name. No focus groups were held to determine whether Carol was the right brand name for me. If we are being told today, we are our brand, I don’t want to be saddled with a name that puts me in a doddering package.

And clearly, I am not the same as I was 50 years ago even if my name was the right name at the time. I want a new and fresh name, something that captures who I am right now, that has aged well.

Cousin Ice Cream Cone

I experiment with this notion when I work with young children. My married name is Cohn, as in Ice Cream Cone.  It is not the two syllable Cohen or Co-hen. Just the short and sweet cone so I tell the little ones that my name is Mrs. Ice Cream Cone. I do this for both practical and educationally sound reasons. Practical because it’s likely they will remember my name and educationally sound because research shows that happy learners actually learn more and that success breeds success. Part of what makes learners happy is being successful. In this environment, Mrs. Ice Cream Cone clearly works for me but I’m not sure it’s right anywhere else.

Uncle Traffic Cohn

When I was pregnant with my son, we did get lots of helpful and not so helpful ideas for names from friends and acquaintances. In no particular order or preference these included: Gengis Cohn, Shaka Cohn, Traffic Cohn, Kubla Cohn, Ice Cream Cohn, Safety Cohn, Waffle Cohn, Soft serve Cohn, Pine Cohn, and Snow Cohn. Our favorite came from a friend of my brother’s who suggested Jimmy Crack Cohn. While entertaining, we rejected them all and went with Miles which appears to be working just fine and seems like a good fit.

So for those of you who know me only as an adult or know me best from childhood or those adolescent years, please don’t think of me as a Carol. Suggestions and recommendations for an updated, better name are being collected right now and I welcome your input.

Help! My 16 year old is calling from a Mexican Prison

Visions of Terror 

I’m sure all of you at some point have received an email from a diplomat or wealthy foreigner in Nigeria who is asking for a mere $300 to help them move millions of dollars from his homeland.  He graciously offers a percentage of this as a reward for helping him in a letter typed in all caps with gross spelling and grammatical errors. 

Here’s the latest twist in our too connected world and it happened to us just this week. My In-laws live in Southern California. We live in New Jersey.  My In-laws are independent and both over 85, God bless them.

Imagine my mother-in-law’s surprise when the phone rang in the middle of the day and it was a young man who said, “Hello Grandma?  It’s Miles (my son’s name). I’m in Cancun.”

My mother-in-law has had the good fortune of traveling just about everywhere in the world and launched into a chat about her visiting Cancun before the fancy hotels were built and how interesting the ruins of Tulum are and not to miss them.

Then this young man, my supposed son, said, “Listen Grandma, I’ve got a problem. I went to Mexico with a friend of mine who won a free 4 day trip to Cancun and took me with him.”

“How terrific!”

“Well the thing is, his cousin picked us up at the airport but we were stopped by the police as we were leaving and his cousin had a little bag of pot that the police found. I didn’t have any drugs and I only get one phone call and I don’t want to call my parents and upset them. “

“Oh my.”

At this point another person spoke, identifying himself as someone from the consulate office (really, in Cancun?) and assuring my In-Laws that Miles was not in any serious legal trouble, but he needed to post bail so he could leave the country. They were told that they could wire $3400 from their local Western Union, which they knew was in a Rite Aid drug store very close to them. Yes, the callers knew this ahead of time.

“Miles” now got back on the phone with my Mother-in-law and begged her to please not tell his parents.

The Walk of Shame

My mother-in-law assured him that she “crossed her heart, she would never tell them and noted that “Miles” sounded different.

“That’s because he’s been crying M’am” the other voice on the line said. He then instructed her to wire the money to the Western Union office in Mexico City.

“Why Mexico City if you’re in Cancun?” she asked.

The gentleman told her that Miles' lawyer, a Mr. Goldberg, had his main offices in Mexico City but if she had any further questions, to please call him and gave her a phone number. He added that since “Miles” had no drugs he could get out but they shouldn’t say anything about drugs when they send the money to Mexico because it could be put on his record

She then went to my father-in-law and recounted the whole tale. My father-in-law picked up the phone and called the number she had been given.  This gentleman answered the phone and when my father-in-law asked if this was a scam was told,

“No sir, it certainly is not.”

So, my very addled in-laws drove to their bank, took out $4000 in cash (anticipating fees and incidentals their dear grandchild might need) and drove to their local Rite Aid per  instructed.  Unfortunately, there was no parking available so they drove down the block as bit to their local Trader Joes. This lot charged for parking but if you got your ticket stamped at Trader Joes, parking is free. So naturally my mother-in-law went into Trader Joes and bought a bottle of wine to get her ticket stamped. I should mention that they are both Depression babies and watch what they spend very carefully.

They were naturally very upset about the whole and had a conversation about whether they should call us or not. They didn’t want to tell my husband that his son is in trouble--  since my Mother in law swore to “Miles” they would take this to their grave -- but they decided to call and check to see if Miles was out of the country without revealing why. 

While she was in the store, my father-in-law called my husband.

“Ric, Hi! It’s Dad. I’m just calling to make sure you got the package I sent last week.”

“Oh, hi Dad, how are you? Yes we did, thanks. ”

“So how is everybody doing?”

“Everyone is fine. We’re excited about coming to visit you in two weeks. Carol is out grocery shopping and Miles is at his friend Richie’s house.”

“Really? He’s not in Mexico?”

“What are you talking about Dad?”

A gentle villian 

And then the cat was out of the bag.  So if my father in law hadn’t made the call or my husband not happen to be home, some guys in Mexico would be $4000 richer.

When my son heard the story he called his grandparents and thanked them for helping fake Miles out.

“Hey,  if you were willing to send fake Miles $4000. Would you like to send it real Miles?”

Ha! Only if you’re calling from a Mexican prison kid.

That which is Sublime.

I have great respect for language.  I worship at the altars of great writers who craft each sentence as part of an assemblage --- which when we step back, takes our breath away. How do they know which words belong?  It is my intention when writing my little blog, to respect my readers and give them something worth reading both in thought and deed.  Whatever the subject, I try to provide my readers with honest and comfortably digestible copy.  I’ve written about the power of music, the joys of theatre, the engagement of movies, becoming a Mother, honoring friends, celebrating artists and even the weather. I’ll write about almost anything that strikes my fancy in the moment.  Writing a blog is like exercising. It keeps my skills sharp for the big projects.  But I’m not kidding myself. These little vignettes are not great literature. I’d like to produce great literature someday and I’m working on that, slowly.

JMW Turner's Snowstorm at Sea

When I was in college, I took a class entitled “The Philosophy of Painting”.  It was an introduction to the philosophies of Aesthetics. My professor, whose name I cannot recall, was a rather round Danish fellow who obsessively paced the floor and never made eye contact with any of his students.  I have a vivid memory of his pastel scarves, long blonde hair, fierce blue eyes and rather sweaty forehead. He spoke with flourishes and passion while his ten students raised their eyebrows. He was absolutely bonkers and Ludwig Wittgenstein was required reading.  If you are unfamiliar with Ludwig, I would certainly understand. While he is considered one of the great philosophers of this century, most of us don’t have the time or inclination to include Philosophy in our Must Dos.  But I include him in this blog because what he said provides a framework for talking about The Tree of Life, the actual subject of this blog.

Here are three of his gems:

 1. A picture is a fact.

How can we deny that which we see?  Wittgenstein talks about vision as a personal experience. He famously asked, if I see (the color) Red and you see Red, how can we ever be sure we are seeing the same color?  Does my vision of Red look the same as your vision of Red?  Is the actual color relevant?

JMW Turner's Sunset

2. What can be shown cannot be said.

One might consider this a more profound consideration of a picture being worth a 1000 words. Wittgenstein considers that what we see is unconstrained by the limitations of language, that there is a distinct visual vocabulary.

3. The limits of my language means the limits of my world.

This is my personal favorite because it helps me to recognize the limitations of a single culture as constrained by its vocabulary. If a particular phenomenon does not occur within a culture, does it even require a name or if there is something that has a profound impact or presence in a culture, is just one name for it enough? One example, Greenland has 38 words for snow.

Sean says little

So here’s my dilemma – I don’t want to diminish the experience of The Tree of Life by reducing it to words.  I cannot possess the vocabulary to do it justice. As I sat in the theatre I so wanted to capture my experience of seeing with my words, to be in the moment, to be present.  It’s not often that a word like beatitude or transcendent are experiential or even appropriate. Yet there they were on the screen in front of me. There is Commerce and there is Art and the difference was never so apparent to me as it was    witnessing this film, a haunting and melancholy and largely narrative-free depiction of the selective nature of memory, of the profundity of loss, of the complexities of love, of the scars of disappointment, and the miracle that is creation. Yes, I’m talking about a movie.

It’s not a film for everyone. It’s two and a half hours long and will not make for a great social exchange at its conclusion. I would never call it a date movie. It speaks to each viewer intimately. It is more like standing in front of a Van Gogh or JMW Turner or walking into a Cathedral or witnessing the landscape of Yosemite and your breath is taken away and you want to hold on to that feeling in silent solitude.

Brad the Dad  -- unlimited by words 

They are those few moments in life when what we witness fills us with a sense of wonderment, and demonstrates the presence of a higher being or power, an intelligence which surpasses our expectations of understanding. We bask in that profundity and recognize genius.

There are very limited moments when we can take the marvelous word sublime off of its special mantel and apply it. The Tree of Life is one of those moments. It is that which is sublime.

Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.   – Ludwig Wittgenstein

On the FRINGE!

I am frequently drawn to crazy and if you are a Facebook friend of mine, it should come as no surprise to you that I am slavishly devoted to FRINGE, a science fiction television series created by J.J.Abrams (creator of LOST), Alex Kurtzman (co-writer of the most recent and wonderful STAR TREK and upcoming COWBOYS AND ALIENS) and Robert Orci (writer and producer of television standouts, Alias and Xena:Warrior Princess).

                                                                                                                With these three extraordinary talents combining forces behind the scenes to create FRINGE, the results are an intelligent, clever, engaging, original show with strong female characters in a genre usually dominated by male heroes.  It has been described as a combination X Files, Twilight Zone and Altered States but what FRINGE possesses that those three did not, is a campy awareness of itself and a broad sense of humor. As earnest and sincere as these scientists and investigators of the "Fringe Division" are; charged with the task of saving our world, the writers relieve the tension with juvenile jokes and character self-parody.

Consider this exchange between mad scientist Dr. Walter Bishop and his son Peter:

Peter Bishop: You brought your own sweetener?

Dr. Walter Bishop: Don't be ridiculous. My medication.

Peter Bishop: You're not on any medication, Walter.

Dr. Walter Bishop: Of course I am. I've been making it myself in the lab.

Peter Bishop: Oh, I wish you were joking.

Dr. Walter Bishop, brilliant madness

Or this with a young child:

Dr. Bishop: When the Victoria, the last surviving ship, return to its harbor of departure after the first circumnavigation of the earth, only 18 of the original 237 men were on board.

Small Child: What happened to them?

Dr. Bishop: They all died, young lady. Horrible and most likely painful deaths. You see, when you open new doors, there is a price to pay. Now imagine... tonight, you look under your bed, and, lo and behold, you find a monster! And you're immediately eaten. Now, if you hadn't looked for the monster, you wouldn't have found it and you'd still be happy in your beds, instead of being slowly digested in the stomach sack of the creature. But, with any luck, your sister or your brothers might have heard your screams, and your endeavor will serve as a valuable lesson to them.

Noble Actor

The characters and their counterparts in the other world that coexists with ours are wonderfully complex and nuanced -- none more so than Australian actor John Noble.  You may recall John from The Lord of the Rings trilogy as King Denethor. Perhaps you were a fan of 24, when he portrayed Russian Consul Anatoly Markov. In FRINGE, John gets the juiciest, wackiest roles (Each actor has a doppelganger in an alternate world.)  on television, that of Harvard educated mad-scientist Dr. Walter Bishop and his other world counterpart who is the Secretary of Defense and billionaire owner of Massive Dynamic. Dr. Bishop is a brilliant mad scientist who with his partner, William Bell (portrayed by Leonard Nimoy!) did a bit of ethically questionable experiments for the U.S. Government.  This included testing a drug called Cortexiphan on a group of children; including the fair Olivia, the beautiful blonde leader of this Fringe battalion.

The Fair and Strong Olivia 

When Walter’s son Peter was a little boy, he died of a terminal illness, leading the fine doctor to travel to this parallel universe to steal Peter's double. Each actor portrays himself in our world and the alternative world where the Statue of Liberty is made of Brass and the Twin Towers still stand, except for singular Peter.

Walter Bishop spent 17 years in Saint Claire's, a mental institution, following a lab accident that resulted in manslaughter charges while his partner (Leonard Nimoy!) in this world betrayed him and built Massive Dynamic. Dr. Bishop was released into the custody of his son Peter to solve a series of unexplained phenomena, called Patterns, which were taking place around the world. His memory is sketchy because his brain is missing parts that he supposedly asked William Bell to remove and he has a pet cow in his lab.

William Bell, as portrayed by wry Nimoy, is as muted and understated as he should be. The bromance between the two, in spite of his betrayal, makes for great silliness.

William Bell - Spock

As I consider these two having much too much fun together I have to consider how well prepared they both were for these parts. In the case of John Noble, he already went off the deep end in Rings and devolved from a stern tyrant to madman much like the duality of his characters in Fringe.

With Leonard Nimoy as William Bell, I have to ask myself if his portrayal of Spock has added some gravitas to his scripted brilliance in FRINGE.

The big questions is does an actor benefit from his previous roles and the perception they created with his viewers? Is there a legacy in an actor’s series of fictionalized characters that provides a certain gravitas to his subsequent performances in ?

If you want to sample Fringe, I might suggest you try the episode:

Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
(It’s available online at "http://www.fox.com/fringe/" for your viewing pleasure.)
It will delight and surprise you.

I will close with one of my favorite Walterisms:
“We're all mutants. What's more remarkable is how many of us appear to be normal.”  

Wha?? Not guilty.

The Gloved One

It was my mixed fortune to give birth to my son right at the start of the OJ Simpson Trial.  So those first most tender weeks were spent glazed and blissed and nursing my new son while Marcia Clark and her investigators spent 133 days stumbling over one another and ultimately allowing a cold-blooded murderer of two people go free. It was not my intention to necessarily follow the trial but I was living in New York City, taking time off from my business and home all day long with a colicky baby. Simpson and his team of truth stealers were dominating all the air-time and in 1995, it was the best Reality TV out there.  The murders also took place on my birthday, which was very annoying although my dear friend Anne, whose anniversary is on 9/11 has much more to complain about -- should she choose to.

I remember watching the trial and knowing it was doomed and I knew the same was true for Casey Anthony.  The parallels between the two cases are remarkable and bear mentioning.

Consider, when first informed that his wife had been killed, Simpson did not ask how, when, or by whom.

Consider, that the police had accumulated enough evidence indicating Simpson's guilt in the murders and obtained a warrant for his arrest.  His attorney, Robert Shapiro negotiated an agreement where Simpson was to turn himself in at police headquarters by 10:00 on the morning of June 17, the day after Nicole's funeral.  He didn’t show. He was driving around Orange County in a white Bronco (what a perfect car to be chased!) with over $8000 in cash, a fake beard and mustache, a loaded gun and a passport in the car.  Does this sound like the behavior of an innocent man?

Casey Anthony spent 31 days partying and dancing and getting tattooed, all while her daughter was still “missing”. Her labyrinth of lies to the police, her parents and reporters were ridiculous.  She lied about being employed at Universal Studios. She lied about leaving Caylee with a baby-sitter. She told police about two imaginary people she had told that Caylee was missing. She even lied about receiving a phone call from Caylee (who placed the call?) the day before she was finally reported missing. Does this sound like the behavior of an innocent woman?

Here's Johnnie!

What did the glove matter to the Simpson case? Nothing, but it was bandied about just like the duct tape that couldn’t be used to indict Casey.  They were distractions that had no meaning but to distract and confuse the jury -- just like the incest and molestation charges Casey made about her father.

There was also confusion about the chloroform and why it was so important. Chloroform is a chemical compound that can be used to knock someone unconscious and also is found in human decomposition, but prosecutors failed to make clear exactly what role it played in little Caylee's death or what it’s presence meant.

It all brought back the testimony of forensic criminalist Dennis Fung, who Barry Scheck painfully eviscerated on the stand. It was this testimony for me that sealed the outcome of the trial. Fung was painfully unprofessional and incoherent.

All in all, the prosecution lead by Ms. Marcia Delusional Clark put forward 72 witnesses. Consider that for a moment. 72? Are you kidding me? At the OJ trial, the jury was so exhausted from listening, that they spent only three hours in deliberation. 

Casey Anthony’s pathetic excuse for an attorney, Jose Baez, came out swinging; laying blame and recasting the crime in a variety of guises with a variety of conspirators both named and unnamed, mostly Casey’s poor shell-shocked family. Again, it was all too reminiscent of Johnnie Cochran’s summation for the defense in which he compared the prosecution’s case to Hitler’s campaign against the Jews; blaming racist cop, Mark Furman, as though he had committed the crimes or at the very least, planted evidence. Never proven, only wildly claimed, just like the claims made about George Anthony.

  

In today’s Daily Beast, Marcia Clark claims that the Anthony verdict was a bigger calamity than the OJ verdict. No Marcia, it’s not.  We can all see through your delusion. They are both equally embarrassing, even disgraceful because the prosecution on both cases did such a pathetic half-assed job that the jury was left with no choice but to let the killers go free.  -- And oh so shameful because the innocent victims will never get their fair day in court.

Iterations of Sondheim

Seeing the movie of Stephen Sondheim’s Company that was made of the four performances at Lincoln Center was a shock to the system. I am an over-the-top Sondheim fanatic and while not every show hits it out of the park, my senses were first jolted by a performance of Company in 1970 at the Alvin Theatre in New York City. I was a young impressionable teen and I had never seen anything like this. 

All my musical fare to date was limited to Rogers and Hart (The Boys from Syracuse and Pal Joey) and later Hammerstein (Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I and The Sound of Music), Lerner and Loew (Brigadoon, My Fair Lady and Camelot), and Bye Bye Birdie, Hello Dolly ( Carol Channing was amazing but I also saw it with Pearl Bailey and Cab Calloway!), and the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan.


All were great shows with many memorable tunes and wonderful sequential stories with easy to follow plots - stories that were structured the way you would expect them to unfold. But Company was/is something else entirely – a series of vignettes revolving around one central character, a single man in a sea of married couples. This was, in it’s time, groundbreaking. I remember that didn’t walk out of Company feeling happy and satisfied or humming anything in particular, but I was dumb struck.

Mandy  -- Born to sing Sondheim 

I’m sure part of my shock was that it talked about marriage as adults might talk about it.  This was clearly a show with music written for adults. In my own childhood home, marriage was combative and ugly, ending in divorce. For a very long time, I didn't know it could be otherwise.  Company incisively captures the highs and lows of these relationships and is both uncomfortable and brilliant.    

The other thing that made me catch my breath was it’s ending.  I had never seen a show that ended without a resolution; that was left open to interpretation, to the viewer’s projections.  It was not the what (Bobby seeks out his own life, leaving his married friends behind.) but the why. Why did he need leave them behind? I was too young to understand. No show with music had ever left me so bereft.

In the years since then I’ve seen Company twice more, not including this latest iteration. I must confess to you dear readers, that there are a few shows that I have seen a few times. At the top of this list is Sweeney Todd, another Sondheim production and IMHO, his masterpiece.  I've seen at least five versions of the show.
The first was the original with Angela Lansbury and Len Cariou (1979) when the theatre was transformed into the bowels of London. Then there was a filmed version of the Broadway show. The third was an incredible revival with a ten-person cast (2005) who each played an instrument. There was no orchestra but the music was played in new Kurt Weill/Bertolt Brecht-like orchestrations (They of Three Penny Opera fame.) This rather stripped down bare Marxist twist on the production starred Patti LuPone (Mrs. Lovett - Tuba & percussion) and Michael Cerveris* (Sweeney - Guitar).  I just loved learning that Ms. LuPone had played the Tuba in her high school marching band!  Some years ago we took our son to a local theatre camp production starring a seventeen-year-old Sweeney with an unfortunate lisp. The family then watched in wonder at Tim Burton's interpretation starring Johnny Depp.  I call these: Sweeney Todd, Teeny Todd, Der Schweeney Todd, Ss-weeny Todd, and Burton Todd ( the opposite of Liz's encounters)  -- just to keep them straight in my head.

Patti pulls it off and then some! 

But this film version of Company was unlike any other musical I’d ever seen on film or stage. Part of it was that the performance was taking place at Lincoln Center for the audience at large, not the screen viewers. As such, each gesture and expression was done for those “out there” while the camera captured each performer up close and personal, so close in fact that you could see the amount of pancake make-up in their pores. This put each actor under unusual and untypical scrutiny. It also created a special intimacy with the performers that I really liked.  The joy of performance was etched in their high definition faces.

Look at the joy in these faces! 

I was very anxious about Patti LuPone being able to pull off The Ladies who Lunch. Elaine Stritch has owned it forever but she blew the roof off! No one does pain like Patti. Neil Patrick Harris is adorable and has a nice voice but he’s no Dean Jones or Larry Kert.  It was a treat to discover that Christina Hendricks has great comedy chops. Some of the other minor players like Martha Plimpton and Jon Cryer, to name two of the celebs in this production, are just a delight. Stephen Colbert is so happy to be part of it all but his vibrato is frequently in search of the right note.  

That said, the very best thing about this production was the sound! Wow. You’ve got the New York Philharmonic and the latest in audio film technology combining together in a small dark room with great speakers and Sondheim. His music has never sounded so majestic and rich!  That made it all worth it.

For a $15 ticket, this was a new and exciting way to experience Broadway and to reach an audience that can’t make it to New York City or can’t just drop $150 plus parking for a ticket to see a show. (Tickets for The Book of Mormon start there.) Yes, I do love going to the theatre in New York City. There is nothing like live theatre, I know I know, but this is great show, an amazing bargain and there are no bad seats. The run was limited but paved the way for more. I know I’ll be back for the next one.

*Fringe alert! Michael Cerveris is the main observer on Fringe.  He also played the pinball wizard, Tommy in the original Broadway production of The Who’s Tommy and was deliriously powerful. 

The Spice of Life

It is almost 11am on a glorious Saturday morning after a brutal early evening thunderstorm that knocked out power to much of the neighborhood.  I’ve been up for hours, having just returned from Janet’s house.  She’s a dear friend and is relocating to California at the end of the month. I will miss her terribly but I am happy for her too. This is something we’ve been talking about for years and is her dream realized.  It’s hard not to dwell on the sorrow of saying goodbye but I understand that friendship is never limited by geography in this most miraculous age where high tech facilitates high touch. 

This is most evidenced by my time spent on Facebook, so often instant chatting long distance with friends in distant places. It helps that I’m fast on the keyboard but I try not to hijack the conversation. The back and forth nature of it actually captures more of my intent than a typical in-person polite conversation does, where spoken language is more linear. You know how when you’re talking to someone, you have to listen to what they have to say before responding or changing the subject?  The automaticity of these written instant zings back and forth enables both parties to “speak” at once, to share any thoughts ---however unrelated ---in real time, and to refer back to what someone has said just in case you weren’t “listening” or your mind strayed off as you were trying to remember whatever it was you wanted to say at some point later in the conversation. I find I value this more as I grow older.  This electronic process enables me to refer back to my “notes” and theirs.  Ironically, many of my far-flung friends know more about me and how I think, than many of my physically closer ones.  The spontaneity of this format of exchange appeals to me.  Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.

So Janet is soon to be a “distant” friend, but only geographically.  In preparation for this departure I was there this morning helping her empty out her kitchen cabinets. We pulled out all of the spices and seasoning treasures and in doing so shared another dimension of our friendship – Cooking.  Janet is originally from the Midwest – Ann Arbor, she’s Black and she’s an awesome cook, just one of her many talents.  I’m a Jew from New Jersey, love to cook and over the years we have swapped foods and dishes like other friends share books.  Her repertoire and mine are different but we have a great appreciation of what tastes good.  Her fried avocado slices and chili dishes are to die for. She practically purred over my plum pies and homemade soups.

She’s lived in her condo for years and amassed, as we do, years of stuff – including said spices.  She had two cabinets full to be discarded.  As the countertop became littered with pretty little bottles and jars, I pointed out her 6 jars of chili powders, 4 jars of red peppers flakes and in the way way back, long forgotten, packages of things that were older than this century.  How often have we purchased new things, shoved older things to the back of our cabinets and forgotten about what we already had? What life lesson might be learned from this, I wonder.   

We sorted out food for the local food bank, tossed out faded passions and she passed on the “bought with the best of intentions practically brand new” goods to me.  I now have a variety of rubs and spices and chocolate powders that will keep Janet here in my kitchen and always in my heart.    

In commemoration of her move, I prepared a special gift for her, a CD of songs each of which has a special meaning as a reflection of our friendship and the magic she has added to my life.  Just like that in person conversation, the words I might say or write were not enough to convey what was in my heart. Language is limited no matter our eloquence or intent.  It is the sumptuous soundtrack of our lives that adds the spice.  

To see more of Janet's fabulous art visit her website:

www.janettaylorpickett.com

Shilling for Bread

I suppose the title of this blog is a bit harsh but I just couldn’t resist the double entendre since I’m writing about what has been characterized as the “gluten free trend.” Most people confuse gluten with bread but it’s actually a protein found in wheat, barley, rye, bran as well as a food additive that thickens or stabilizes and is added to meats and processed foods. Bread on the other hand, also means money and there is plenty of it being made by food manufacturers jumping on the gluten free bandwagon. There is no small irony that gluten makes bread fluffy!

Part of the wide spread hoopla can be traced back to Ms. Chelsea Clinton’s nuptials and the news that the festivities included a $10,000 gluten free cake.  Snort at that if you must, but about 1% of the population suffers with celiac disease for which gluten is like eating a slow killing poison. I’m not one of them. I have gluten intolerance or sensitivity and you may too, especially if you are 50+.

To be fair, I must disclose that I subscribe to Time magazine and I usually find their reporting and coverage both responsible as well as reflective of my own sensibilities. (I also think Joel Stein is very funny.) This week’s issue, covering the dilemma that is Pakistan, was no exception but for the inclusion of a one page piece on the aforementioned gluten free trend. The focus of the article was on the recent surge in gluten free products now being offered at our local supermarkets and the misconceptions that consumers may possess about the health or weight loss benefits that might come with going gluten free. It also pointed out that gluten-free has become a major selling point and consumers are equating it with “low carb”.  It noted that some people may suffer from gluten sensitivity but there is no data on this.

Now I understand that my relationship to gluten may not be as newsworthy as Chelsea’s cake, but to all my contemporaries who suffer from arthritis (My knees are a mess. Thank you Nana Sophie), autoimmune complications (I have a wanky thyroid.), depression and/or ADD -- or have children or grandchildren that do – going gluten free may help alleviate some of the symptoms. And no, I’m not going all Jenny McCarthy on you. The connection to gluten and “curing” autism is none. Shame on her and the Doctor who claimed that inoculations caused autism.

So, here’s how I became gluten free. About a year ago my husband sent me an article (We email back and forth a lot.) about the connection between arthritis, autoimmune problems and gluten. It explained that gluten was being added to many foods that it was never in before and at higher levels. As a result, people who like breads or pasta (and who didn’t climb on the whole wheat wagon with me?) and other foods to which gluten is added; may over time develop gluten sensitivity. It went on to state that removing gluten from your diet might help alleviate some of the attendant symptoms.  Individuals reaching their 50s were most likely to be affected. Apparently we’ve been around long enough to suffer.

So, I called my friend Mary Anne, nutritionist and Celiac sufferer for her advice. My knees were a mess, painful enough to require a heating pad every night and being threatened with replacement by my specialist. Was there a test I could take to determine if I was indeed gluten intolerant? No, she replied. In fact when she had taken a test her condition didn’t even show up. The only way to determine if you are affected by gluten is to take it out of your diet for two weeks and see how you feel.

What a pain in the neck this was. I love to cook and this meant completely revamping my repertoire. All the pastas and breads disappeared. The first week was really rough. But I did it and lo and behold the pain in my knees disappeared. They still creak sometimes especially in rainy weather, but what a difference!  My son is now gluten free and finds he can concentrate on his homework more easily. He says that if he eats gluten now it makes him sleepy. Yeah us!

My household has adjusted and I find the gluten free adjustment has made me look more carefully at all of the foods we eat.  My carb intake now includes more rice and potatoes and corn – all gluten free. I love Chex cereals, gluten free and not expensive either. You can go to your local Whole Foods and ask for their gluten free product list and they’ll give you a 17-page print out. My only advice - don’t buy the gluten free English Muffins -- ever. They taste like wallpaper paste.

I didn’t take any tests but I can tell you that omitting gluten made a real difference. No one can actually diagnose your sensitivity but if you suffer from any of the ailments I’ve described, you may find relief in the gluten free aisle. 

 

Customer (Lack of) Service

I don’t blame the people I talk to. It’s everyone else in the world I blame.  As a member of the sandwich generation I’m snuggled uncomfortably between raising a teenager and caring for a aging parent.  Both can require full-time devotion. Both can require the patience of a saint.  Luckily for me, my son is kind, thoughtful and full of common sense because I have never been mistaken for a saint.

Unluckily for me I have a parent who does, for the moment, require all my time.  She is unto herself as they say, a piece of work.  But she’s all I got so I’m trying to make the best of it while the rest of the world conspires against me.

Case in point. I want to switch her cell phone to a “friends and family plan” I want to pay her phone bills both cell and land lines.  I want to suspend her home phone service while she’s in the nursing home.  I want to have a message on her home phone referring callers to my number.  One might think in the age of the Internet that this would be a slam-dunk since they are all with Verizon. Think again.  I cannot do any of this via their website.

3 hours of calls -- separate phone numbers and operators for each service and service change.  How many times do I need to be on hold listening to their promotion for Verizon Vios?  Even when I finally get to a breathing living human being, they want to know if I would be interested in bundling her cell, land and internet access for $99 a month .... Hello, did you not hear that my mother is in a nursing home? 

Adding insult to injury, I am told in one conversation that I may pay her bills by phone. However I will incur a $3.50 fee for the privilege of doing so. I am incensed. “Oh, it’s not a charge from Verizon, it’s blah-blah-blah company.” 

“Really? Well just because the name of the payment processing facility doesn’t include the word Verizon, does not mean that the money doesn’t go to Verizon. Do you understand how insulting this conversation is to me?”

Then I try to get her home phone service taken care of.  I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that I literally needed to hang up and call a different phone number to complete my business. Cell phone and land line customer service exist in two different universes. As a matter of fact just yesterday two Verizon Fios representatives rang my brother’s doorbell at home. He opened the door to a young man and woman who went into a sales pitch.  He told them that he hated Verizon (he had used them as an internet provider years ago) and that his sister (lovely me) had just had the most horrendous experience dealing with their phone services. “Oh, but we’re Verizon Fios, we don’t have anything to do with the phone services!”

Again, do you understand how insulting this conversation is to me? Hey doorbell ringers, can you spell Jehovah?

So I have switched my mother over to my account. One less bill for her to worry about I think. Today, three days after the switch, Horizon called her cell phone to tell her that she had exceeded her monthly minutes. (It was actually my phone calls that did it, handling all of the nonsense required to make it all easier.)  She was upset by the call because at this stage of her life, she’s upset by any phone call.  So I decided to handle it from work. Why they were calling her, the new addition to our service, was beyond me. I called the 888 number she had been given. The sales rep who eventually got on the phone asked my for my billing code number. I did not have the billing code with me but I did have all 6 phone numbers we have with Verizon.  I was told nothing could be done without the billing code so I asked to speak with a supervisor. I was told that the gentleman I was speaking with is a supervisor.  So I concluded my conversation with “ Your customer service is disgraceful. I hope this call is being taped.”

Not to be upstaged by Verizon, there is their cousin Horizon, the company with the perfect prefix. You know the “Health Care provider”.  How does an insurance company become a health care provider? Does it take your temperature?  Does it diagnose your ailments?  Where are the advertising police on this one? 

 Horizon provides what is euphemistically called “managed” health care which means they manage to charge you more, the more you use it.  At least that’s their strategy when it comes to elder care. They attract a large cluster of senior citizens by providing insurance policies with low premiums and then, when you really need services because you’re getting older and more decrepit, you pay for every aspirin, every sheet of TP and they may limit your days in the hospital or nursing home in any way they choose.  My mother fell into this trap and I’m trying to pull her out of it.

The coverage she has is called Horizon Medicare New Jersey, but it is not Medicare, it is just another insurance company. But by using Medicare and New Jersey in its name, it would be easy to see how someone might be confused. Seeking to extract her from this I was told by the business manager at her nursing home that the managed care coverage could not be just cancelled, it would require that she spend three consecutive days in the hospital to receive regular Medicare. 

This is not true, this is just boneheaded information and just one of the many substandard services and information the facility has provided.  Even the people at Horizon told me this when I called them.  But in order to have her released from the insurance, I was told by Horizon Medicare that it requires a “special election”.  What, I asked, was a “special election”?  I was told that because she is requesting Medicare outside of their “open enrollment period” that I had multiple forms to complete to get a waiver to enable her to do this. 

Then I was told that I would also need to complete a “Formulary” for her.  A what? A Formulary is the name for the list of prescription medications she receives.  I asked if everyone at Horizon called it a Fulmonary.  I was told that they do. Then I asked that she email all these forms to me so I could figure out what to do next.

I hung up and called Medicare. Not fake Medicare, the real one. I had a couple of questions for them.  

1. What is a special election? Bonilia at Real Medicare said I must mean a "special enrollment election."  The inclusion of the word enrollment at least helped to clarify what my mother, the new office holder, was up against.  I aksed if this was a Medicare term.  “Yes, it is” I was told.

2. How about a Formulary? Is that a Medicare term as well. “Oh, yes it is but Medicare needs to determine if she is a Tier 1 or Tier 2 recipient. “ Ok, I give up. What does that mean?  “Well we need to look at all the prescription medications she is receiving and determine whether we will cover it or not.“  What is the reason for covering or not covering a particular drug? I asked. Is it related to the cost?  “The ingredients in non generic drugs differ from generic drugs.  We need to examine whether or not we cover the particular ingredient.”  So, going back to my original question, is it related to the cost of the drug?  “Well, it is related to the cost of the particular ingredients.” Again, so this comes down to the cost of the drug.  “Well, yes I guess it  is.”  

Then I asked, when is the open enrollment period. To which she replied that “this year is was October 15^th to December 7^th.” 

What do you mean this year?  Does the open enrollment period for Medicare (which we all pay for with our taxes) change year to year? And if it changes, how do you notify the eligible consumer what the new open enrollment period is?  

“We send them letters every year. Every United States Medicare receipient, whether managed care or not, receive notification via mail. Last year the open enrollment period was November 15 to December 31.”  

So then I asked, well why does the open enrollment period change each year.  The Medicare person was unable to tell me why.  I asked if she could Email a copy of a typical letter to me. No, she could not.  It’s no wonder our national deficit is out of control. How much is Medicare spending to send snail mail to seniors every year?  Why do the open enrollment dates need to change?  I have a headache.

I have to stop now because I need to make another 50 phone calls to people who provide information that is wrong and boneheaded from the scripts sitting in front of them at their little cubicles earning minimum wage and deciding the fate of our families.