It’s always something. Our washing machine has suddenly started to leak. I was hoping it was one of the hoses, but when I popped open the back I could see it’s leaking where the transmission couples with the tub. It’s only seven years old. So much for Maytag reliability! But at least it picked a good time to die. This weekend there’s no sales tax in Massachusetts. See you at Sears.
And oh, by the way, we still don’t have our replacement Bose Wave. It’s in transit from Arizona, and according to the UPS tracking number will be here mid-week.
Last Sunday we were at Tanglewood, in Lenox, MA, where the Boston Symphony Orchestra plays every summer. It was an all Mozart program, and well attended, although the age of the audience skewed decidedly 40 and up. I caught some of the applause on video at the end of the concert, following Mozart’s Symphony No. 38, “The Prague.”
While waiting in line to buy a snack during intermission I happened to stand next to political consultant and former presidential adviser David Gergen, and I overheard him discussing — what else? — politics.
A few miles up the road, at the Norman Rockwell Museum, there’s an exhibit of political cartoons by leftist artist Stephen Brodner. I like Brodner’s work a lot. His style seems to show the influence of Al Hirschfeld, as well as Ralph Steadman’s earlier drawings, with perhaps a dash of Arnold Roth tossed in here and there.
And in North Adams, MA, at the Museum of Contemporary Art, aka Mass MoCA, Eric really enjoyed Jenny Holzer’s PROJECTIONS. It’s hard to say what it is. Here, watch and decide for yourself.
A kid happened to be screaming, and his echo gives you an idea of how big the room is. The museum is in the former Sprague Electric factory, and that hall is the same one I mentioned last September, about a failed exhibit. However you want to describe PROJECTIONS, Holzer took good advantage of the space. This is the view from the other end of the room.
There are huge bean bags on the floor, so you can lie back and look up at the projected poetry. A fascinating side effect of the exhibition were all of the sleeping children, totally zonked in the bean bags. Walking through the cavernous hall, with its weird lighting and echoes, it was as if the kids had become part of the exhibit.
I watched some, not too much, of the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, and they sure were impressive in HD. All of the coverage is in HD, and it’s scaled down for regular TV. This made me think about the looming end of analog broadcast TV on February 17, 2009. When that happens, my little LCD TV that Carol bought for me Christmas 1999, will no longer work.
This TV is very important to me, because it’s what got me out of a very deep and dark place emotionally, while I was face down for weeks on end, stuck in something called a vitrectomy chair, following a second surgery for a detached retina.
Before getting that TV I listened to the radio all day, but as much as I love radio, doing that didn’t lift my spirits. Reading was impractical, but I could put that portable TV on the tray of the chair and watch it out of my “good” eye, which later had problems of its own.
There was a UHF station in Boston that showed a lot of old Bonanza episodes, and those became the highlight of my day. I was amazed by how adult the show was, and by how much innuendo there was in the writing.
Besides the TV, something else Carol did that was helpful was she read out loud from Thomas Hardy’s tragic book “The Mayor of Casterbridge.” It’s not a very cheerful story, but I really got into it, and enjoyed discussing its characters and themes with Carol. Since then we’ve watched several different adaptations of “The Mayor of Casterbridge.” The recent A&E production is very good, but Dennis Potter’s version with Alan Bates is probably our favorite.
And I must also say thank you to D.F. Rogers, who played Dragnet radio shows from the 50’s for me, that we listened to on Eric’s toy R2-D2 cassette player. When I was down and out, doing that was a lot of fun. Hard to believe that was almost nine years ago.
As a child I was a Marxist. I had a Marx Mystery Spaceship and a Marx Moon Base. My twinster Jean spotted this eBay auction for a complete Moon Base set in particularly good condition.
I go past the Bose headquarters every day on my way to/from work, and a neighbor friend works at Bose. The Wave Music System is known for having more than its share of problems, but I bought one anyway, because it fit perfectly on the porch, and I could get it at a good price through our neighbor — not a factory renewed unit, but factory fresh.
Well, after only six weeks of light use, this is what happens when you try to play a CD. Eric demonstrates. Listen for a different neighbor’s cute, little attack doggies in the background.
At least the slot loader mechanism works, so the disc isn’t stuck in there. I should be able to get a new replacement Bose Wave without a hassle. This has been a bad summer for product defects.
On the other hand, two things that are working great are Eric’s Xbox 360 and the video projector. Here’s a demonstration. Visualization by Jeff Minter. Look quick for the song title if you wish to avoid!