Christmas in Dixie

Make that WHITE Christmas in Dixie. It started snowing here in Mentone, Alabama, at about 7 this morning. Been falling steadily ever since. We have probably 3 inches on the ground now and could get another few. It's beautiful and makes for a perfect Christmas Day. Ransom and I just took the dog Shelton for a long walk and all three of us thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. This is how Christmas should be.

Have a wonderful day, y'all.

Charlie, Jolyn, Shelton, Ransom, and Walter

It's beginning to look a lot . . .

Yeah, it is. We're going down South for Christmas so I decided not to do much decorating. No 14-foot tree as in some years past; no glass and crystal second tree; no 34 candles, one in every window.

But the Moravian Star seemed a necessity, as did the Santa Face. Then Ransom and I talked about the candles and he said they looked fine in the old part of the house, so 19 of them went up. And there was this wreath lying around in the basement and all these strings of unused lights -- and so it went up. And of course the ornaments hung every year above the dining room table . . . they had to make an appearance, right?

Finally, I made my annual trek to Authentiques and bought a few new things there and, well, it IS beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

The trip to the store was sandwiched between my first visit to the Big Apple Circus and my annual hearing of all six Brandenburg concertos. Enough said about the circus. As for the Bach, it was a wonderful afternoon, as always. Ransom and colleagues played beautifully to an appreciative and packed house. Don't know exactly how these pieces came to mean Christmas at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, but they do, and I'm glad for it.

But back to the decorations. The Moravian Star symbolizes Ransom's time at the North Carolina School of the Arts and came from a shop in Old Salem. The city of Winston-Salem was founded by Moravians in 1766 and uses these stars as their official Christmas street decoration. The star was originally designed in Germany in the 1830s, probably to teach kids geometry.

The Santa Face is far less historic, though it does carry the weight of time in my family. My parents bought it for my brother's first Christmas. That makes it 65 years old this year. Yes, it's tacky as all get-out, but it means a lot to me. I've known it my entire life.

The trip to Authentiques produced this bakelite reindeer that reminded me of the later plastic ones we had as kids. This one is likely from the 30s. The other ornaments are new, but I love them just as much; there's a carp, a zeppelin, a large purple globe and, pictured below, a spaceship.

It's a time of wonder and whimsy, even for this crusty old curmudgeon. Merry Christmas everybody!

Putting my money where my rant is

We are all bombarded, often daily, with requests for donations; I find it hard to decide who to support, especially since my main giving goes monthly to Bank of America and American Express to pay interest charges. That, and the fact that our house is under water . . . well, there's just not a lot of discretionary income.

I support public radio, though I think of that as a payment for service rendered rather than a donation. I have often given to the Names Project, keepers of the AIDS Memorial Quilt. Likewise I give to the local animal shelter, the local volunteer fire department and the Woodbridge Land Trust, which works to conserve and preserve the natural resources around my home.

I have just decided to make an annual $600 pledge to the Trevor Project, whose mission is “to end suicide among LGBTQ youth by providing life-saving and life-affirming resources including a nationwide, 24/7 crisis intervention lifeline, digital community and advocacy/educational programs that create a safe, supportive and positive environment for everyone.” Their vision is “a future where the possibilities, opportunities and dreams are the same for all youth, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.”

This is a group I can march with, be proud to belong to and perhaps even do some volunteer work for. Our nation’s most important natural resource is not oil or coal or even water; it is our children. They need our love and support and the LGBTQ youth need our protection from the hate-filled, bible-quoting homophobes out there.

Please consider joining me in supporting these hard working folks.

Check out The Trevor Project and watch some videos at the It Gets Better site while you're at it.  And think about spending some Christmas cash where it can do some good.

What A Diff'rence a Hall Makes

Woolsey Hall on Yale's Campus, New Haven, CT

I went to two concerts over the weekend; Friday night was the Yale Jazz Ensemble and Yale Concert Band's tribute to Cole Porter and Glenn Miller and Sunday afternoon was the Hartford Symphony's third subscription concert of the season. The two experiences could hardly have been more different.

The Glenn Miller part of Friday night's concert is something that Director Tom Duffy has done several times before, and done brilliantly. He recreates an original Glenn Miller radio broadcast from 1944, from the same space that Miller used. The first half of the concert featured famed New York cabaret singer Steve Ross, backed up by the concert band. It had the makings of a great evening.

It wasn't. It was in Woolsey Hall. Therein lies the problem.

As has every concert I have ever attended at Woolsey, it started late. 17 minutes late. 17 minutes of sitting in the stuffy, uncomfortable, wooden-seated, terrible sight-lined Woolsey Hall. When it did start I remembered immediately the main reason I hate this space: it has perhaps the worst acoustics of any performing arts space in America. Even when Mr. Ross was playing solo piano and singing into the microphone, he could not be understood. Many in the audience, me included, know a lot of Cole Porter songs by heart; the songs I did not know, I still do not know. Words were indecipherable.

Ross's performance was good, not great. I'd give him a B+. The arrangements were less successful; in many cases they served to further muddle the sound, though whether arrangements exist that can sound good in Woolsey is open to question. I'd give them a C+. The acoustics? An F. Absolutely.

Yale knows how bad the acoustics are here. Ask any musician forced to play in this barn. Ask the New Haven Symphony, which presents concerts here as well. In the interest of full disclosure, I must add that Woolsey is home to the fabulous Newberry Memorial Organ; it sounds fantastic in this cavernous space. It is the ONLY thing that does. And the Yale organists are probably the only people on the planet who want to preserve Woolsey as is.

I didn't stay for the Miller. 95 minutes after the supposed starting time of the concert the intermission still dragged on; why this was so, I don't know. I do not blame Duffy or his people; I blame again Woolsey Hall; the backstage area is so tiny that set changes are incredibly difficult. There are no wings to speak of, no fly space at all. Because I had heard this show twice before, I split.

Two days later I drove to Hartford to hear a brilliant concert (Tchaikovsky's beloved piano concerto, Barber's Medea and Mozart's 40^th Symphony). I parked my car at eight minutes before three and was in my seat four minutes later; there was no mad crush at the door, no long line waiting to pick up tickets, no confusion as people try to decipher a bizarre seat numbering system – all problems endemic to Woolsey. The Belding Theatre, part of the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts, is a 900 seat, two-level theatre with superb sight-lines and warm, rich acoustics.

The Hartford Symphony is an excellent ensemble which rarely fails to impress. Sunday's performance featured a wunderkind, CT high-school junior Alex Beyer absolutely nailing the Tchaikovsky. The Barber was equally exciting but the most nuanced and ultimately rewarding playing came during the Mozart. It was a great concert in a comfortable and appealing space. I should also add the the Hartford Symphony does a great job of taking care of its patrons; one example: automatic phone reminders of possible traffic delays or unusual start times. Oh, and they start on time, given that “on time” has come to mean “within 5-8 minutes of the posted time” in every venue in America.

In all ways these two concert experiences were as different as night and day. I am glad I live in the New Haven area; I just wish New Haven and Yale would take the arts as seriously as Hartford does.

Belding Theatre, Bushnell Performing Arts Center, Hartford, CT

Photo by Robert Benson