How Do They Do It?

I blame the Book of Face. It sucks up all my writing. It is tweeting without a hashtag.
How the heck do all those bloggers out there work the free ice cream machine so, apparently, well. I mean, I follow about a dozen daily blogs and deeply appreciate that the owners can update every day. Usually more than one entry.
Of course, some are aggregates, with nothing but links. Others are writers, putting up their own essays or commentaries.
I appreciate all of them.
Mayhap I can improve my mad-writing skills by trying a bit harder to get a post up more often.

Arias and Recitivito

I am now convinced that the whole reason satellite radio was developed is so I can listen to live Metropolitan Opera.
No, really.
Growing up in Virginia, I spent many Saturdays at my Great Aunt Mary's house. She was a life-long member of the Met Opera. We listened to the Texaco-Met Opera radio broadcasts all through the '60s. I cannot recall any of the particular shows, but the listening bug must have burrowed in deep, because there are only a few composers that I won't listen to with great appreciation. Most Wagner, for instance.
During a recent trip to Texas, I attended my first Met Opera HD broadcast at a movie theater. Live opera, on the big screen, with surround sound, intermissions, popcorn...what's not to love? The performance was Verdi's Othello, starring Renee Fleming. I am sure that there were other singers (Falk Struckmann sang a fantastic Iago), but they were all overshadowed by Ms Fleming.
I had to call Debi after the show to tell her that I had lost a small piece of my heart and that Ms Fleming held it. Her "Magnificat" or prayer to Mary was a stellar display of voice and comfort and belief. Marvelous beyond words.
Yep, all those satellites just for me.

WGOE - Richmond, Virginia - 1970's

Growing up in Richmond, the earliest radio station that I can remember would have been WLEE or possibly WRVA. Good stations, though I do not know if they are still broadcasting. They may be on the air, but the question is if they are still the same format from the sixties and seventies.

No, it was later that I was introduced to the station that still drives my listening memories. WGOE, the highest point on your AM dial, 1590. This was a top forty station that morphed into album oriented rock. Long before we all started listening to FM stations, WGOE was playing what would become FM standard.

The station never really had a huge power output. In the West End, out in Henrico, it was easy to hit hollows and have the signal drop out. But in-town, music like I still want to hear. Music giveaways like getting a plain white cover of J. Buffett's Son of a Son of a Sailor. The various ball teams (softball, flag football, basketball), all named the Nads. So we could all stand on the touchlines and shout, "GO, Nads!" Cheap, sure, but fun.

Right after I joined the Army, WGOE was sold and went about as far from its format as was possible. Christian music.

I think I'll have a drink tonight in remembrance of what was...and still can be on satellite radio.

November 9th, 1989

It had been another day of classes at the Non-commissioned Officer Academy, at Ft Leonard Wood, Missouri. I was there for the Combat Engineer Advanced Non-commissioned Officers Course (ANCOC). Those of us that got a lift in the shuttle van entered the barracks hallway and went to our rooms. We pretty much agreed to meet in the small commons area to head for the dining facility in about five minutes.
Upon entering our rooms, we all pretty much automatically turned on our televisions. They were all tuned to either MTV, the Weather Channel, or a news channel.
Pause.
We were all senior NCOs. All of us had either done one or more tours in Germany or Korea. We all had a pretty good idea of what we could be called upon to do, in the event of a breach of the fences in either place. We jokingly, as had thousands of our predecessors, called ourselves "speed bumps".
We had performed border patrols, practiced our wartime missions (in sector), and generally knew what a terrifing amount of firepower, death, destruction, and pain was awaiting all forces, on both sides of the fences.
But, that was our job, and not a one of us was serving as a draftee. Volunteers all.
End pause.
BANG! CRASH!
Every door on the hallway slammed open.
All of us were standing in our doorways, staring at each other with a Cortezian "...wild surmise."
We moved as a group to the commons and spent the next several hours in front of the big television in that room, watching as The Wall came down. We watched as thousands of Berliners, East and West that morning, but just Berliners now, climbed on, over, and atop that hateful barrier of concrete and wire that snaked like evil thought through the heart of Berlin.
We watched people pick up sledgehammers and chip away at the face of The Wall. We watched whole sections of The Wall pulled thunderously down, to thunderous cheers.
We saw the world turned upside down, the world that we grew up in and served in, flip on its axis and reright itself in a new way.
To this day, I will proudly proclaim that, after forty-plus years of staring at each other, we (the West) outlasted those evil bastards on the other side of the fence.

That is what I remember about November 9th, 1989.

Fictional Friendships

I have been working on the set of "The Wizard of Oz". Like many shows over the past ten years, this one has high points, low points, jerks, sublime moments, in short, all the things that make up live theater.
I have found myself near tears, several times. Never having done any studies of theater, or the interaction of life, history, and scripts, I have to say that this play, and the memory of the movie, strike me at my heart.
The Tin Woodsman is correct, I know I have a heart, because this one is breaking.
I have seen, felt, discovered, and recognize, in every scene, a separate moment of truth. Baum wrote a pretty good book. Then came the movie that most of us recall from years of annual television viewing. Then came the play.
All of them contain moments of humor, terror, pathos, love, and almost every emotion that I can think of.
I am in awe of the powers of suggestion, of imagination, and of recognition.

...and now for the discounts...

HA. I am working in a bookstore. This is the second of my all-time greatest goals in the working world. I've already done number one, working in a brewery.

Hmmm, beer and books.

Really Big Model Rockets

I was born at the start of the Space Age, about a month-and-a-half after Sputnik went up. I can still get teary eyed at the videos of NASA launches.
So I am very stoked at this story from Popular Mechanics,

http://www.popularmechanics.com/home_journal/workshop/4315103.html?page=1

A gent named Steve Eves, of Ohio, built a 1/10 scale model of a Saturn V rocket.
How cool is that?

Tip o'the hat to Glenn Reynolds for pointing to this article.