Author: Dave

Five hundred posts would suggest I have something to say… This blog was born from a desire to elevate the English language, highlighting eloquent words from days gone by. The stories I share are snippets of life itself, and each comes with a bonus: a dusted-off word I hope you’ll go on to use more often. Read “Deutschland-ish Improvements” to learn about my backyard European wish list. Try “Slush Fun” for the throwback years of the 7-Eleven convenience store. Or drink in "Iced Coffee" to discover the plight of the rural French cafe. On the lighter side, read "Late Night Racquet Sports" for my adventures with our latest moth invasion. As Walt Whitman said, “That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.” Here then, my verse. Welcome to Life In A Word.

De-lightful December

The Broadmoor Hotel, the five-star luxury resort here in Colorado Springs, boasts a Christmas season display including over a million twinkly white lights. The weekend after Thanksgiving crowds gather on the grounds to witness the illumination, which starts with a countdown and ends with the flip of a big switch. Instantly the Broadmoor is delivered into the Christmas season. It’s a spectacular sight and a tradition that’s been carried on for thirty years. I can’t imagine how long it takes to put it all together.

Christmas lights are one of my favorite expressions of the season. I marvel at the time and energy some of my neighbors invest to produce a display that – like the one above – can probably be seen from the space shuttle. Surely you have a similar house where you live (or a hotel) where the lights and the decorating borders on the ridiculous. Or maybe you just tune in to “The Great Christmas Light Fight” (Mondays on ABC), where “decorating to the extreme” can win you a cash prize and the coveted Light Fight trophy.

We have a house in our neighborhood covered in nothing but purple lights. It’s actually quite appealing but I question the choice of color. Most people still use strands of multi-colored lights of course – more LED than incandescent these days. Sometimes you see animals or trains or colorful scenes. Those always remind me of Lite-Brite, a toy I had as a kid. Lite-Brite was a simple light box fronted by color-by-letter templates. You plugged colored plastic pegs into the template and when you were done, you turned off the lights and switched on the box to display a glowing, colorful picture. My more artistic friends would forego the templates and make their own creations in the dark.

I see Christmas lights everywhere this time of year; not just on houses. Traffic signals blink red and green. Ditto airport runway demarcations. And how about those overhead lights your drive-thru bank uses to indicate which lanes are open or closed?

It shouldn’t surprise you to learn the first Christmas “lights” were candles, glued with melted wax to tree branches in the wealthier homes of late-nineteenth-century Germany. Electric strands came along several years later (Great Britain claims their invention); originally referred to as “fairy lights”. Finally, several cities – San Diego, New York City, and Appleton, Wisconsin among them – claim to have originated the outdoor Christmas light display, which only seem to get bigger and more elaborate by the year.

Perhaps you’re like my family. Other than the tree itself we’re lucky if we string one hundred (let alone one million) lights on the outside of our house. I like to decorate a tree or two in the yard instead, but the house itself stands in the shadows. Perhaps it’s because I fell off a ladder one year reaching across the top of the garages. Perhaps it’s because I prefer the look of the “candle in the window” (so much easier to put up!)

Less is more in my opinion. One of my favorite decorated houses in our neighborhood combines a simple outline of white lights on the house with a few colored trees in the yard. That works for me. Even a single white light will do as long as it’s bright enough. So goes the Methodist hymn There’s A Song In The Air: “Ay! the star rains its fire while the beautiful sing…” Referring of course, to the star of Bethlehem. The one true and luminous Christmas light.

The Best Branch on the Tree

Gracie lay quietly and perfectly still for what seemed like forever. Her snow hat tickled her auburn hair. Her dress, with the oversized snowflake front and center, felt worn and wrinkled, though she couldn’t be sure with her surroundings so dark. Something sharp was poking her in the back. Above her, below her, to the right and to the left, Gracie sensed the color and glitter and shine of nearby objects. She couldn’t move to see them but Gracie knew they were there. After all, when you’re a Christmas tree ornament you know what it’s like to spend a year in a cardboard box.

Suddenly and without warning, a door opened. Gracie held her breath, as this basement closet was home to more than just Christmas things. But then she heard happy voices and boxes being shuffled about. There was a quick trill of sleigh bells followed by a friendly clack-clack of Christmas lights. Then there was a jolt – a bit of an earthquake really! – and the sensation of being lifted and moved. But it wasn’t until Gracie felt she was going up the stairs one at a time she knew for sure. Yes, YES – it was time! December was here again! Gracie smiled (though she always smiled no matter how she felt). In all her excitement she tried to push back the qualms; the uneasy feelings that entered her mind every year at this moment. Would she make it to the best branch on the Christmas tree? Would she make it to the Christmas tree at all?

Other ornaments slowly came to life around her, yawning and stretching (those that could move, closer to the top of the box). There was the excited chatter of anticipation. Who would be chosen first? Who would face the fireplace with its brightly decorated garlands and stockings? Who would hang from the lowest tree branches, where you could almost reach out and touch the presents below? And which lucky ones would journey highest, standing guard on branches just below the Christmas angel? “Oh, hurry, please hurry,” thought Gracie. “Let us out into the light!”

Suddenly all of the movement stopped. The box top was removed. Bright light filtered all the way down to the bottom, where Gracie lay impatiently. As the ornaments above her were removed, Gracie’s thoughts still wandered. Was the tree big enough? Did it have good, solid branches? Did her family still love her enough to include her?

At long last Gracie saw hands reaching down and removing the ornaments close by. Away went the Star of David. Away went the little wooden rocking horse. Away went the gingerbread man with one eye missing. Finally, the whole box was upended, and Gracie and the remaining ornaments came tumbling out into a messy pile on the table. “This is awkward,” she giggled, sprawling almost upside down. It would take some untangling if she hoped to get noticed.

To the sound of Christmas carols and laughter, Gracie watched from the table as one after another of the ornaments were carried to the tree and placed carefully on the branches. She had only just arrived yet the tree was already looking complete!

“Oh no”, she worried, “I’m a little girl but I am pretty big for an ornament. Will there be any branches left to hold me?”

Then Gracie heard the most dreaded words. “Okay, kids,” an adult said, “I think that’s enough for this year. Let’s stand back and have a look.” And sure enough, the children danced in front of the tree, so happy and clapping. The tree was complete and with the best of the ornaments. Gracie felt a tear form on her cheek. She spied Tin Man, Scarecrow, Cowardly Lion, and Dorothy hanging together halfway up the tree; the perfect view of Christmas everything. Her Wizard of Oz friends made it to the best branch on the tree this year.

Gracie felt so sad, so very neglected. She wished she’d never even seen the tree. Why hadn’t they remembered her this year? Christmas could be so cruel! She watched helplessly as leftover ornaments were placed one by one back into the box. But just as she was scooped up along with a tangle of other ornaments, a wee voice cried out from somewhere below the table, “No, Mommy, NO! Snow Angel needs a place on the tree, doesn’t she?”

Gracie held her breath. Was she really a “Snow Angel”?

There was a long pause; nothing but silence really. Mommy looked down at the ornaments in her hands, pondering. And then she smiled. With a little bit of untangling, Gracie was lifted gently from the pile. She was placed in a little girl’s hands, who promptly marched to the tree and determinedly searched for an open branch. Seeing none, she slid around to the back of the tree, facing the windows and the snow-covered fields outside. “Here is where she belongs, Mommy,” the little girl said proudly. “Snow Angel will be the very first ornament to know when Christmas comes!”

And so, there would be a Christmas for Gracie after all this year. She smiled as she glanced at the branch above her and kept watch through the windows for the coming of Christmas (though Gracie always smiled no matter how she felt). Thanks to the little girl, Gracie made it to the tree after all. Come to think of it, she also made it to the best branch of all.

Sundance Man

Two weeks ago we had a little excitement on the west side of town. A street and two houses were borrowed for a Netflix production called Our Souls At Night. For ten days cast and crew were hard at work while a few locals kept watch from lawn chairs across the street. Maybe I too would have grabbed a lawn chair if I’d known the film’s stars were Robert Redford and Jane Fonda.

I claim to be a Jane Fonda fan but really only for a handful of films; all between 1979 and 1981. In those years you had The China Syndrome, The Electric Horseman, On Golden Pond, and 9 to 5. On the other hand Robert Redford won me over for virtually every film he has acted in, produced, or directed. I would be hard-pressed to come up with a Redford movie I didn’t care for (and he’s made well over a hundred of them).

Robert Redford has worked with many of Hollywood’s greats. He made several films with Paul Newman for instance, including Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the earliest of Redford’s performances I can remember. When I consider how many Redford movies I’ve seen since his turn as the Sundance Kid, it’s remarkable I somehow missed The Sting – also with Newman and considered one of Redford’s best. Perhaps The Sting should be my “homework” for writing this blog.

Redford acted with Barbara Streisand in The Way We Were, with Dustin Hoffman in All The President’s Men, with Meryl Streep in Out of Africa, and with Brad Pitt in Spy Game. His leading ladies included Glenn Close in The Natural, Demi Moore in Indecent Proposal, Kristin Scott Thomas in The Horse Whisperer, Debra Winger in Legal Eagles, and Fonda in several other movies (including Barefoot in the Park, one of Redford’s first films).

Remarkably, three of my favorite Redford films are ones where he’s behind the camera instead of in front of it. in 1980 Redford directed Ordinary People, which won him the Oscar for Best Director (as well as Best Picture). In 1992 Redford directed A River Runs Through It and also narrated a good portion of the film. And in 2000 Redford produced The Legend of Bagger Vance, which proves that golf occasionally does make for good entertainment.

Redford is described as an “intelligent, reliable, sometimes sardonic good guy”. Nice to know he can laugh at himself. I also find it interesting he grew up in Van Nuys, CA (15 miles from my childhood home) and attended the University of Colorado (90 miles from my current home). Redford now lives near Park City, Utah, on several hundred acres he calls Sundance Ranch (home of the film festival by the same name). Redford once said, “I often feel I’ll just opt out of this rat race and buy another hunk of Utah”. I can relate to that.

Last week Robert Redford was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award. When asked to describe his body of work Redford said, “storytellers broaden our minds: engage, provoke, inspire, and ultimately, connect us.” Redford will soon be done with acting, but thankfully he will continue to direct. With that in mind I eagerly anticipate Our Souls At Night, and any other stories the man has yet to tell.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia” and IMDb.com

Little Jack Horner

Behold the Thanksgiving feast. Turkey and stuffing – a meal unto itself. String beans with mushrooms, dripping in butter. Crescent rolls (because you can never have enough carbs at Thanksgiving). Every side dish imaginable, or at least enough to fill up the empty spaces on the table. And then there’s dessert. Homemade cookies and cakes. Pies galore – pumpkin, apple, and cherry. And way over in the corner – completely overlooked like a little kid begging for attention – mince pie.

I love mince pie. It’s an exorbitance of flavors, provided you like the ingredients of course: raisins, dried apples, and molasses, blended with generous helpings of cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg; topped off with two or three shots of brandy. For the spices alone – which were said to represent the gifts brought to Jesus by the three kings – mince pie is sometimes referred to as Christmas Pie. But early Americans didn’t celebrate Christmas, so mince pie made it to the Thanksgiving table instead.

Mince pie has a colorful history. The Brits get credit for the pie itself, but the Middle East gets credit for the fruits and spices, discovered by European crusaders on their travels and returned to their various homelands. Mince pie was originally a dinner pie – meat included – with the spices added to hide the sometimes “off” taste of meat without refrigeration. Over time the meat was left out entirely so only the fruit and spices remained. The pie literally morphed from savory to sweet (and from “mincemeat” to just “mince”). At one time mince pie was banned from dinner tables, frowned on as a religious symbol by Puritan authorities. I’m glad I don’t live in a time of Puritan authorities.

If you’re looking to salvage a few calories as you roam the Thanksgiving buffet, don’t go anywhere near mince pie. Were you to consume the whole pie you’d be talking 3,600 calories, and that doesn’t even include the essential topper of brandied cream (“hard sauce”). Were you to only eat the filling you’d still take in almost 400 grams of carbohydrate and 250 grams of sugar. But you’d take in no fat and almost no protein. It’s like consuming a concrete block. If someone threw you in the East River after a generous helping of mince pie you’d sink to the bottom in nothing flat.

More trivia about mince pie:

An eating competition was held in 2006 where the winning contestant ate 46 mince pies (not 46 whole pies but rather the smaller tarts you see in the photo above).
Mince pies were originally coffin-shaped (not round), but they just called them “rectangular” because coffins hadn’t been invented yet.
Early versions of mince pie contained a total of thirteen ingredients – symbols of Christ and his disciples. Another reason those pesky Puritans considered the pie “forbidden fruit”.

Making mince pie is quite the chore. Take a pie shell, dump in a jar of mince filling, top with another pie shell, and bake at 425 degrees for thirty minutes. To be honest, the hardest part of making mince pie is finding the jar of mince. Your local supermarket may carry it but they usually hide it deep in the lowest shelves of the baking aisle (are they embarrassed to carry it?) One time I found a jar that looked dusty and dated, as if it had been back there since the last Thanksgiving. Another time the checker humiliated me by saying, “No one ever buys this stuff. Why would anyone ever buy this stuff.” Well, I buy this stuff, pal. Because I like mince pie.

Mother Goose rhymed: Little Jack Horner, Sat in the corner, Eating a Christmas pie. That’s me. I’m Jack on Thanksgiving. And I’m sweet on mince pie.

Patriot Games

Tomorrow a chessboard will be auctioned off in New York City, with an opening bid somewhere north of $75,000. For that kind of money you’d picture a one-of-a-kind treasure beautifully crafted from the finest materials; perhaps inlaid with gold. The chess pieces themselves would be intricately carved ivories or bronzes. On the contrary, the auction block chessboard looks like most others: alternating light and dark wood squares with nondescript wooden pieces. Not much to look at – unless you know its epic history.

In 1972, in what was later dubbed “Match of the Century”, American Bobby Fischer and Russian Boris Spassky met in Reykjavik, Iceland to play a total of twenty-one games of chess over a three month period. The match recognized history’s eleventh World Chess Champion, with Fischer emerging as the eventual winner. With the title Fischer claimed a purse that in today’s dollars would be almost $1.5 million. The chessboard in tomorrow’s auction was used in Fischer/Spassky games 7 through 21, replacing a stone board used for the earlier games.

The significance of the Fischer/Spassky match goes entirely beyond the crowning of another World Chess Champion. In the 1970’s the United States and its NATO allies, and Russia (then the Communist-ruled U.S.S.R) and its Eastern Bloc allies, were in the throes of a “Cold War” that defined the post-World War II tension between dominant world powers. The sociopolitical cultures of these “western” and “eastern” countries could not have been more different. Thus the chess match was seen as an allegory; especially with Fischer – the first American to ever compete for the title, taking on Spassky – the current World Chess Champion and one of five consecutive Soviets to hold the trophy dating back to the 1940’s. It was as if a feisty newcomer was speaking loudly for the first time. As former world champion Garry Kasparov described the outcome, “… the lone American genius challenges the Soviet chess machine and defeats it.”

The Fischer/Spassky competition attracted more worldwide attention than any chess match before or since. All twenty-one games were televised (though the third game had to be illustrated with move-by-move graphics since Fischer insisted on temporarily moving away from the cameras). In the years following the match, “Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess” became the best selling chess book ever published. The opening scene of the James Bond film “From Russia With Love” depicted a chess match with moves patterned after Spassky’s . Chess became supremely popular among American kids (maybe because Fischer was already playing in national championships at the age of fourteen).

I have a personal connection with the Fischer/Spassky match, as shown in the photo above. I learned chess at an early age thanks to the determination of my grandfather. He insisted on a game every time we were together, and most times he beat me. Today I have one of his chess sets as a precious keepsake. But my grandfather also urged me to participate in a school-wide chess tournament, and the trophy you see was the result. From then on my grandfather teased me by saying he wouldn’t play anymore unless it was for the trophy.

Notice the date of the school tournament; inside the same year as the Fischer/Spassky match. By wonderful coincidence I was competing at a time when chess was most prominent on the world stage.

My chess game never really matured from those grade school years – and Fischer and Spassky likewise descended into relative obscurity – but a marked impression was made by watching their 1972 match on television. Now whenever I see a chessboard I’m reminded the game is not just kings and queens surrounded by their armies. The successful bidder at tomorrow’s auction will hold an emblem of history – from a time when the world’s chess pieces were as divided as never before.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

America Makes the List

Last Friday’s celebration of the Chicago Cubs in the Windy City made headlines the following day. The fantastic turnout to celebrate a long-awaited World Series victory – from those lining the parade route to those further south at the rally – was generously estimated at FIVE MILLION people. That’s a serious confluence of baseball fans. But the number really gave me a jolt several days later, when someone ranked the gathering as the seventh largest in human history.

Five million. Hard to picture that many people in one location. The population of Chicago is only half as much so the suburbs must’ve emptied out as well (it was a record day for the Metra commuter rail service). Maybe I should’ve hired a helicopter or the Goodyear blimp and flown overhead, just to see all those human heads from a single vantage point.

Perspective? If you take the combined attendance to Major League Baseball games in the 2016 season – 73,159,044 fans watching 30 teams play 2,424 games – Friday’s crowd was almost 7% of that. If you only consider the attendance to the seven games of the World Series – 299,704 fans watching 2 teams play 7 games, Chicago’s party drew seventeen times that many.

Five million people live in Norway (though I challenge you to see every single Norwegian from one location). Five million people also live in the Russian city of Saint Petersburg, but how would you get them all to stand still while you counted?

I still can’t picture five million, but maybe the following will help. Dunkin’ Donuts just announced its “DD Perks Rewards” program exceeded five million members. Whirlpool just announced a recall of five million tumble dryers in the UK because of “blaze risk” (same technology as the Galaxy Note 7 phone?) A recent census indicated five million people have jobs in Switzerland. By the year 2020, a bunch of new robots will be added to the global workforce, thereby eliminating – you guessed it – five million jobs. Finally, here in Colorado the government’s ‘Project Baseline” built a vault to store all kinds of seeds for future experiments, in response to climate change and environmental degradation. Scientists have been collecting the seeds since 2012 and the vault now contains… five million of the little buggers.

Those are some fun facts but they don’t really paint the picture I’m looking for. Let’s consider five million another way. When someone says “seventh-largest gathering”, you want to know about gatherings one through six, don’t you? What would you guess – religious pilgrimage? Papal mass? State funeral? Correct, correct, and correct. Here are the top ten gatherings in mankind’s recorded history:

Kumba Mela pilgrimage, India, 2013 – 30 million
Arbaeen festival, Iraq, 2014 – 17 million
Funeral of CN Annadurai, India, 1969 – 15 million
Funeral of Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran, 1989, 10 million
Papal gathering in the Philippines, 2015 – 6 million
World Youth Day (also attended by the Pope), Philippines, 5 million
Chicago Cubs World Series Celebration – 5 million
Funeral of Gamal Abdel Nasser, 1970 – 5 million
Rod Stewart concert, Brazil, 1994 – 3.5 million
Hajj pilgrimage, Mecca, Saudi Arabia – 3 million

Thanks to the Cubs, America finally makes the list. But I’m no closer to picturing five million people than I was at the start of this post, and I’m running out of words. Tell you what. If the Cubs win the World Series next year (meaning the world comes to an end again), I’m heading to Chicago to be a part of the victory celebration. If I can’t picture the number, at least I can say I was “one in a million”. Or five million.

Let’s Do the Time Warp Again

Here we go again, time-travelers. This Sunday at 2:00am a good portion of the world will effortlessly move backwards one hour as we roll off of Daylight Savings Time (DST). It’ll be dark outside earlier (no more “summer nights”) and it’ll still be dark when most people wake up. Slam the door on summer – our days will feel shorter for the next eighteen weeks.

The rules of DST have changed over time (ha), at least here in the United States. The concept itself was borrowed from the Germans as a way of conserving fuel, and began in 1918; the same time the U.S. adopted “standard time zones” (Pacific, Mountain, etc.). At first it was a federal mandate in conjunction with wartime activities. Several years later DST was abandoned entirely. Then it was turned over to the individual states to adopt (or not). Finally, DST was given formal guidelines in 1966 as part of the Uniform Time Act.

DST still feels like an experiment with no satisfactory results. In 1974-1975 the U.S. tried DST for an entire year, but went back to the on-off approach when concerns were raised about kids heading off to school in the dark. In 1986 DST was extended from the half-and-half calendar to include the entire month of April. In 2005 DST was extended again to the first Sunday in November -to accommodate trick-or-treating on Halloween. That last modification was only eleven years ago, for a concept that has been around for a century. Any bets the rules of DST will change again?

Arizona (outside of their Navajo lands) and Hawaii may have the last laugh. Both states leave their clocks untouched while the rest of us move backward and forward year after year after year.

Whether or not DST continues, this much is true. On Sunday I will be resetting two alarm clocks (my wife’s actually auto-adjusts but doesn’t understand post-2005 DST), three wall clocks, three temperature gauges, two thermostats, two car clocks, and several appliances and watches. Any of these products could be designed to auto-adjust (like phones and computers) but maybe their creators don’t trust the DST rules won’t change yet again?

A word of advice about Sunday’s change. Proceed with caution when you head out on Monday. Not only will it be darker, but your body clock – which can’t be adjusted with a button – will be slightly out of kilter. Strange things happen the day after clocks adjust, including more accidents between cars and people (if certain Department of Transportation reports are to be believed).

Last thought. Today’s word is mnemonic, which refers to any means of making the retention of information in the brain easier. MNEMONIC is also an acronym for “Memory Needs Every Method Of Nurturing Its Capacity” (I like that). That brings to mind a couple other mnemonics. The Great Lakes can be remembered with HOMES (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior). The bass clef in music (the notes A,C,E,G) can be remembered with “all cars eat gas”. And of course, DST has its own mnemonic to determine which way the clocks adjust. Remember: “Spring forward, Fall back!”

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Hooked on Classics

If I am to believe certain lists, there are over forty different genres of music in the world today. The more common ones come to mind quickly: “Rock”, “Pop”, “Hip-Hop”. But now we have “Industrial” and “Tex-Mex” as well. Indeed, definitions of music are becoming as diverse as the cultures from which they took flight.

Among music genres – the list of which inflates to hundreds if you include sub-categories – “Classical” looks a little lost. Classical music’s definition is broad and complicated, but most of us would acknowledge its “golden age” as the time frame between the lives of Bach and Beethoven (effectively, the 18th century). The volume of symphonies and concertos and sonatas created in that period is so vast, even those with no interest cannot deny a familiarity with the genre’s most famous compositions.

The absence of orchestras (or music programs altogether) in today’s schools and universities is a tragedy. Attendance at classical music concerts is down. Even classical radio stations lack the advertising revenue to survive, depending instead on the generosity of their donors. But here’s the good news: the genre still finds its outlets.

Consider the movies. Year after year Hollywood produces fairly forgettable films, yet certain scenes are worth the watch if only to hear the accompanying classical music. Some examples:

1) Ocean’s Eleven (2001). Danny Ocean’s gang of thieves finally completes the heist at the Bellagio Hotel, and gathers outside at the fountains for a moment of reflection. The enchantment of that scene is as much about the fountains as it is in the soaring strings of Claude Debussy’s mesmerizing “Clair De Lune”. Watch and listen here.

2) If I Stay (2014). Chloe Moretz’s character Mia performs “The Swan” (from Camille Saint-Saens’ “Carnival of the Animals”) on solo cello at a community concert, and the music continues through several more scenes. “The Swan” is elegant and lullaby-soft. Listen here (performance by Yo-Yo Ma).

3) Somewhere in Time (1980). Christopher Reeves’ character’s obsession with the lovely Jane Seymour leads to a desperate time-travel effort to find her in her youth. When the couple is finally reunited (in his dreams, of course), we are treated to Sergei Rachmaninov’s powerful “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini”. This scene would be nothing without Rachmaninov. Listen here.

Hollywood once created an entire movie about classical music. The Competition (1980) – an early film in the careers of Richard Dreyfuss and Amy Irving – explored the rigors of the real-life Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. Watch the movie and you’ll hear excerpts of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 and Sergey Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3. Listen to the glorious Prokfiev piece from start to furious finish and you’ll wonder how anyone can play the piano with that kind of speed and dexterity.

Even a child’s story can be uplifted by classical music. In the stage production of “You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown” Schroeder plays Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” on his toy piano while Lucy accompanies him in song. The lyrics are creative and work surprisingly well for a sonata created over 200 years ago. Watch and listen here.

This post would not be complete without a begrudging nod to the album “Hooked on Classics”, created and performed in the 1980’s by Louis Clark and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. “Hooked” is a mash-up of familiar classical pieces, attached to an annoyingly robotic drum track. It’s a ten-minute audio nightmare for anyone who truly respects the genre. Remarkably, the title track made it to #10 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1982 (alongside Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock ‘n Roll” and Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin'”). If you must listen, go here.

My campaign for the survival of classical music stems from years of childhood piano lessons, including a teacher who demanded strict adherence to the genre. Thus I didn’t practice “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” or “Frere Jacques”, but rather Bach’s “Solfeggietto”, Beethoven’s “Ecossaises”, and Albert Ellmenreich’s “The Spinning Song”.

Listen carefully the next time you’re at the movies. Lend an ear to the classical strains of an orchestra or philharmonic. Flip the radio dial to something instrumental every now and then. Classical music lives, and still deserves a prominent place among the music genres.

Athens of the South

Ever been to Nashville? It’s a lot to see and do in a city that still feels like a small town. My brothers and I visited Music City for the first time two weeks ago. We toured the historic Ryman Auditorium – the “Mother Church of Country Music” and former home of the Grand Old Opry. We walked through the massive Gaylord Opryland Hotel. We drove down “Music Row”, the area of town with hundreds of record labels, publishing houses, and recording studios. We even sampled carefully-crafted moonshine (if you believe there is such a thing).

Yet, none of these sights prepared me for another of Nashville’s attractions that frankly deserves more press. Just southwest of the downtown area in Centennial Park, rising prominently on manicured lawns, you’ll find a full-scale fully-authentic reproduction of the Parthenon – that most famous of ancient structures on the Acropolis in Greece. If one can laugh and be in awe at the same time, that was me. A reproduction of a temple built in 438 BC? That’s the last thing I expected to see in Nashville.

Here’s what’s left of the original Parthenon (or “O-Parthenon” if you will) – which I spent significant time studying in architecture school. It is considered the most important surviving building of the classical culture of Greece, and the finest example of Greek architecture. It is a temple dedicated to the goddess Athena, whom the Greeks considered their patron. If you visit O-Parthenon today you won’t see much of the original structure, thanks to a mid-1600’s explosion of a munitions dump inside the building. Attempts to restore O-Parthenon have failed for lack of funding. Ironically, back in its heyday O-Parthenon was used as a treasury.

Nashville’s Parthenon (“N-Parthenon”) is the complete restoration, and it is a colossus. N-Parthenon is 200 ft. x 100 ft. with a surround of 70 columns. Inside its main space you’ll find a massive statue of Athena, rising 42 feet from the floor and gilt with more than eight pounds of gold leaf. A likeness of the goddess Nike standing in her right had is fully six feet tall. Pictures don’t do justice to the scale of N-Parthenon.

The origin of the Nashville Parthenon is almost as impressive as the building itself. Nashville’s Centennial Park was the site of the 1897 Tennessee Centennial and International Exposition, a celebration of the state’s 100th year in the Union, including dozens of pavilions, restaurants, and large-scale carnival rides. Prominent within the Exposition was the Parthenon, which was surely a nod to the “Athens of the South”. Nashville earned that nickname in the 1850’s for the city’s establishment of several institutions of higher education.

The Exposition Parthenon was built of plaster, wood, and brick; not robust enough to last beyond the year of the celebration. But the cost of demolition and its popularity drove a movement to reconstruct the building in concrete – authentic to O-Parthenon to the last detail. N-Parthenon was completed in 1931. Athena herself was added in 1990. Appropriately, N-Parthenon contains a wonderful collection of photographs and descriptions from the Exposition. Makes our county fair look like small potatoes.

There have only been two other attempts to replicate O-Parthenon since its creation 2,500 years ago. The Walhalla Memorial in Germany (above, left) was built in 1826, but the completed structure is merely a nod to the architecture of O-Parthenon and much more about the distinguished people in German history. The National Monument of Scotland (above, right) was also built in 1826 – go figure – but abandoned three years later due to lack of funds. Take your pick; I say N-Parthenon beats “G”-Parthenon and “S”-Parthenon in a runaway.

Any visit to Nashville should include some aspect of the city’s rich history and allegiance to the music industry. But add the Parthenon to your agenda as well (especially if you think you’ll never make it to Greece). Oh, and per the sign, leave the wheels at home.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Banana Rant

Let’s start with a song today; or at least a verse from a song. See if you remember this little number:

Jack, Jack bo-back, Banana-fana fo-fack. Fee-fi-mo-mack, Jack!

The song? It’s “The Name Game”, that annoying rhyming chant that should stick in your brain for the next several hours. Here’s another one:

Day-O! Day-O! Daylight come and me wan’ go home!

The song? It’s the “Banana Boat Song”, made popular by Harry Belafonte.

I mention these songs because they’re happy on bananas. And I hate bananas. Let me rephrase: there is no fruit, vegetable, or otherwise consumable item on God’s green earth more singularly unappetizing to me than bananas. I only have to think about the taste of a banana and I consider tossing my cookies. Bad news for me though – supermarkets, songs, commercials, movies and desserts ensure my world is constantly bombarded with the yellow fruit. Bananas are as prevalent in the urban jungle as they are in the real one.

I blame my growing-up years, now that I think about it. My first bike was a 1968 Schwinn “Lemon-Peeler”- the one with the “banana” seat. What in God’s name was I thinking? I could’ve had Schwinn’s “Pea-Picker” (green) or Schwinn’s “Cherry-Picker” (red) but no; I had to opt for a “Banana-Peeler” (as it came to be known). It horrifies me to realize I sat on a banana for a good chunk of my childhood.

My Saturday mornings included “The Banana Splits Adventure Hour”; that silly animal rock band I somehow found entertaining. Disney crushed me with “The Jungle Book”: King Louie eating bananas every time he was on-screen and even singing about them. (I will never sing about bananas.) Finally, I can’t shake those Chiquita banana commercials, the ones with Miss Chiquita dancing and singing: I’m Chiquita banana and I’m here to say… catchy little jingle. It’s like the media was conspiring to force me to like bananas.

Fruit was a requisite item in my school lunches back then. Oftentimes my mom would put a banana in my school lunch instead of an apple or an orange or grapes. My protests went unacknowledged at home so I gave bananas away at school, to anyone who showed interest. Not that I got anything worthwhile in return. Bananas have little value in the American high school.

All of the above pales in comparison with one ghastly horror-film-worthy banana-filled-memory. Coming into the kitchen one morning before school, I found my mom busily frying bananas on the stove. I rubbed my eyes in disbelief but the image didn’t go away – banana slices sizzling and popping in an oil-filled pan. Seriously? Aren’t bananas bad enough the way nature made them? Couldn’t I opt for a bowl of sliced bananas and oranges instead, where enough shredded coconut on top blocks out the banana taste? Apparently not. Mom just had to be adventurous. I can still picture that plate of thin, dark, hot, greasy banana slices next to my more redeeming breakfast items. Gag. It’s a forever-imprint on my brain.

Even the concept of “acquired taste” failed me with bananas. For example, I used to hate tomatoes (and yogurt repulsed me even more), but somewhere in my food journey I actually learned to enjoy them. Now they are staples in my diet. Not so bananas. Bananas are as choke-worthy today as they were in that frying pan forty years ago.

If I must eat bananas there’s only one way they’re going down the hatch – in banana bread. I actually like banana bread. That’s probably because the dozen other ingredients win the battle and effectively expunge the banana taste. It’s like Fig Newtons if you hate figs. Or Oysters Rockefeller, with enough broiled cheese and spinach to effectively kill the oyster.

Opinion: bananas foster, banana splits, banana cream pies, and banana pudding are all outstanding dessert choices as long as you leave off the bananas.

Facts: 100 billion bananas are consumed every year across the globe. Americans alone account for 27 pounds/person/year, which equates to 108 bananas! You’ll find bananas on the list of the “World’s Healthiest Foods”. The Latin word for banana translates to “Fruit of the Wise Men”. California even has a Banana Museum for crying out loud. (17,000 items!)

None of that moves me. Gwen Stefani may sing B-A-N-A-N-A-S on “Hollaback Girl” and shirts or sweaters may tempt me at Banana Republic, but I will never put “like” and “bananas” into the same sentence (er, except this one). But hey, call me if you’re hungry. My 108 bananas are all yours.