culture – Page 13 – Life In A Word

Sitting in the Catbird Seat

Though she’s only four, our granddaughter relishes being the eldest in her family. She already demonstrates the authority associated with the role, especially in the presence of her siblings. She seems to understand how her position in the order comes with slightly increased expectations. Her sisters will challenge her command as they grow older (and won’t that be fun?) but for now, for the most part, they take her lead. Not that I would understand “first position”, mind you. I’m neither the oldest nor the youngest in the family I grew up in. I’m what you might call an “off-center middle”.

If there’s a significant advantage to being a middle child (I’m the fourth of five) I’ve yet to discover it after all these years. The eldest child experiences the “firsts” (driving, voting, etc.) while the rest of us wonder when it’ll be our turn. The youngest receives a gentler version of parenting (and who can blame a parent after five kids?) Meanwhile, the middle(s) are looking in both directions wondering where to take sides. Inevitably, to appease all, the middle child finds a way to agree with everyone. Our son is also a middle and he’s neutral so often we’ve nicknamed him “Switzerland”.

Maybe we middles have it better after all. It’s not often I fall into the vast minority on a topic but today I do, because… I prefer the middle seat on airplanes. A recent survey says only 6 out of every 1,000 frequent flyers feel the same way. My five outliers and I have our reasons; mine make flying more comfortable for me. On the aisle I can’t help leaning out a little, to where beverage carts or those passing by brush up against me. On the window (which I happily bequeath to my wife) I have less elbow room up against the glass. Even when the passengers on either side of me take the armrests (a subject to toss about another day) I still feel my greatest sense of freedom is in the middle seat.

I can now reap rewards for my middle-mindedness. In a promotion sounding equal parts creative and desperate, Virgin Australia (VA) is giving away prizes to make the middle seats on its airplanes more appealing. Just by choosing the middle, I enter a lottery for a million VA frequent flyer miles, a helicopter pub crawl (a what?), or a bungee jump (but isn’t Australia flat?). I can even win tickets to the final of the Australian Football League. Of course, entering VA’s “Middle Seat Lottery” assumes I want to fly somewhere within Australia. I also have to join VA’s frequent-flyer program. And I’ll need to figure out Australian football, which may be the toughest ask of all. But you get the idea. “In the middle” is now a little cooler.

Maybe the airlines should revive an old saying. They could call the middles catbird seats instead. After all, “sitting in the catbird seat” refers to a position of advantage or superiority. I can win the helicopter pub crawl and you can’t (advantage) and I’ve deluded myself into thinking I have more elbow room than you do (superiority). All from the catbird seat.

Try as I might, definitions of “middle” never stray far from “average”, or at best “neither one extreme nor the other”. The dictionary also labels me as “ordinary”, “mediocre”, “commonplace”, and “pedestrian”. Even if I spice up the word to “middling”, I’m still defined as just “medium” or “moderate”. I could stretch things a bit and go with “fair to middling” but even then I’m merely slightly above average. Nope, the only “outstanding” middle I can come up with is our stomachs when we’re, ahem, not in the best of shape.

“Sitting in the catbird seat” works well for today’s topic, because I moved to the American South just a few months ago. The phrase originated down here a long time ago. Literally, it’s a bird’s habit of singing from way up high in a tree, a sort of nyah-nyah-nyah to its predators who can’t climb nearly as high. And maybe that’s my aim for today: to elevate us “middle-peeps”, even if I haven’t come up with much substance to do so. But consider this: the more of us there are, the less likely you’ll be sitting in the middle seat. As a thank-you, the least you can do is meet me in the middle and pick up my beer tab when I win the helicopter pub crawl.

Some content sourced from the CNN Travel article, “Airline launches lottery to entice more passengers to sit in the middle seat”.

Drinkin’ Problem

Thanks to social media, product advertising is a complex challenge these days. Hiring an “agency” no longer suffices, at least not for major corporations. They depend on “brand builders” instead – Interbrand, for example. Interbrand boasts “…a global team of thinkers and makers [encouraging] bold moves to leap ahead of customers and competitors.” Interbrand also values the companies they help build. On their list, well inside the top ten: Coca-Cola.

My brothers and I gathered in Atlanta last week for a semi-annual reunion. Our initial stop wasn’t Coca-Cola’s world headquarters but rather, its popular “World of Coca-Cola” tour. If you haven’t walked through these doors, Coke has turned an impressive three-story building into a glittery three-ring circus to promote its products, with a side of historical context. As if Coke needs more promotion. The genius of this soft drink, as we learn on the tour, is the relentless, boundless effort to put Coke’s brand everywhere imaginable. Cans, clothing, and cars, just to name a few. But pixels?

Here’s a weird suggestion. Go into your home laboratory, create a flavor, and label it something that doesn’t have a flavor. This is Coke’s latest go-to gimmick to retain market share. Coca-Cola Zero Sugar “Byte” has come and gone (limited-edition products are another way to retain market share) and you probably didn’t have a taste. And what does “data” taste like? According to drinkers it’s pretty much the same as Coke Zero, adding in the sensation of the old “Pop Rocks” candy.

Coca-Cola also developed “Coke Starlight”, somehow determining the taste of “outer space”. Drinkers said it tasted like Coke with an aftertaste of cereal milk (ewwwww). Go to the store today and you can purchase the latest of these curiosities: “Coke Dreamworld”, which has been described as “Coke soaked in sour peach rings” (ewwwww again). As the saying goes, there’s no accounting for taste… or should I say, with Coca-Cola there’s no caring for taste. Instead, the bottles and cans promote music, videos, and other products through a QR code. And there’s the branding concept in a nutshell. You’re attracted to the purchase because it’s a Coca-Cola product, but the draw is anything but the drink itself.

I shouldn’t be surprised how far the taste of Coke has, uh, evolved in the one hundred and thirty years since its market debut. The variations on the original formula are myriad, including Cherry Coke, Vanilla Coke, Diet Coke, and “Coke Zero” (no added sugar but plenty of artificial sweeteners). Let’s not pretend any of these drinks are actually good for your consumption. But at least vanilla and cherry are tastes we understand. Dreams? Not so much.

“Dreamworld” and the other recent flavors target “gamers and younger audiences”. My brothers and I saw a lot of kids on the “World of Coca-Cola” tour so maybe the advertising is working. Regardless, Coca-Cola has a bigger challenge to confront. Sales of soft drinks are on a serious decline, in favor of bottled water and healthier options. Coke recently cut its portfolio of soft drinks by fifty percent (bye-bye Tab) in an effort to improve its bottom line. To me, that’s a sound business strategy. But flavors that aren’t really flavors? That’s desperate.

Coca-Cola had a big red flag in the 1980s (appropriate color, no?), one that should’ve discouraged future dabbling with their products. Who among you doesn’t remember the debacle of “New Coke”? The flavor variation – the first in Coca-Cola’s long history – debuted to rave reviews, with claims it was better than Coke or Pepsi. But here’s what Coca-Cola didn’t see coming: consumers immediately defended the original flavor. Instead of buying New Coke, they cleared the shelves of the original flavor for fear it would go away forever. Begrudgingly (and very quickly), Coca-Cola returned the original flavor to stores under the name “Coke Classic”. But New Coke never found legs and eventually disappeared from the shelves altogether, while “Coke Classic” returned as simply “Coke”.

” Coke Dreamworld”, as you would expect, features prominently in the “World of Coca-Cola” tour. The flavor that isn’t a flavor, along with a silly 3-D movie and a giant retail store, targets the youngest of consumers. But let’s be honest, most people go on the tour for the tasting room, where they can sample Coca-Cola’s products to their heart’s content. “New Coke” is not among those choices. Pretty soon I don’t expect to see any flavors-that-aren’t flavors either.

Some content sourced from the CNN Business article, “Coke’s latest bizarre flavor is here”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Conifer Confetti

When you move to a new city and state, you deal with the expected and the unexpected. The expected includes boxes that don’t unpack themselves (but what a great invention, right?), over-the-fence greetings with neighbors (categorized as “nice”, “cranky”, and “utterly weird”), and enough wrong turns on roads where you finally pull over and mutter, “Where the heck am I?” Unexpected includes the drip of a leaky pipe ($$$, sigh), chew-crazy squirrels in the backyard (anything plastic is fair game), and, oh yes… pine cones. Lots and lots of pine cones.

Five acres may seem like a lot to some of you readers but to us it’s downsizing from our ranch in Colorado. You’d think a property a sixth the size of the former would suggest lower maintenance. After last Sunday I’m not so sure. My wife came in from the barn the day before and said, rather gently, “We should probably pick up the pine cones in the back pasture before they get out of control.” Simple enough. After we fed and watered the horses, we went out to the field with the muck rakes and began picking. A muck rake can hold ten pine cones. Around the first tree I figured I picked up fifteen rakes’ worth. Again, simple enough… except we have at least twenty pine trees. Do the math. Our pickup amounted to a motherlode of pine cones, somewhere between two and three thousand.

Back in Colorado we had, like, one pine tree on our property (a magical one actually, which I wrote about in My Dandy-Lion Pine Tree). After last weekend I’m thinking I should’ve amended our purchase agreement on the new place to say, “Remove nineteen of twenty pine trees”.

What does Dave do with all of his pine cones? Nothing, for now. The most efficient system of gathering is to throw them against the base of the trees and then haul them away to the “yard waste” dump. But in the three hours we collected cones, I had plenty of time to think about better ways to do it. The neighbors suggested a “pasture vacuum”, which is like one of those big spinning brushes you see in the car wash, dragged behind the tractor. Others suggested a big bonfire, pretty much the last thing a person from Colorado wants to see in their backyard.

Here’s thinking outside of the box: I could get a pet Parasaurolophus, the dinosaur with a distinctive crested head. The Para has thousands of teeth perfectly suited for their favorite meal: pine cones. But I’d need a time machine so I can bring one back from sixty million years ago. Looks like it’s still me and the muck rake for now.

“Conifer cones”, which include pine cones, play a vital role in the evolution of the trees. Between all those little wooden scales are the seeds, first pollinated and later released. It’s a sophisticated process which you can read a lot more about here. In its simplest terms you have the smaller, meeker “males”, who release pollen for the “females” to catch. Then the females release the seeds, even after they lay in my pastures by the thousands, seemingly dead.

“He” (lower) doesn’t even look like a pine cone

There was a moment in all that raking where I followed a squirrel as he bounded across the grass and onto the trunk of one of the trees. Up, up, up he went until he disappeared into the umbrella of the branches above. And that’s where, to my horror, I noticed how many thousands of pine cones sat poised above me. Maybe millions… almost all of them female. It’s like having the world’s biggest sorority row above my backyard, and every house is about to disgorge its girls for a giant party on the ground. Maybe I should hire Sticky Vikki & The Pine Cones for the music.

I know, I know, it could be worse. I could live in Maine, where there are so many pine trees the state flower is the pine cone (and a pine cone is not even a flower). Or I could have Coulter pine trees, with cones so big they’re nicknamed “widowmakers”. Seriously, these ladies are massive – you don’t want one falling on your head. Speaking of falling, the mere sound of a plummeting cone is unnerving enough. It’s like a warplane flying overhead and releasing a bomb, only the bomb whistles straight to the ground without detonating. “THUNK”.

I’d have a massive herd of these Scandinavian toys

We shared the story of our pine cone bounty with my brother-in-law, who promptly encouraged us to do something creative with them. Make wreaths for the holidays. Turn them into coffee and jam like they do in Eastern Europe. Sell them as the fertility charm they’re supposed to be. Nah, I don’t have time for all that. We’re expecting extra wind in the next few days courtesy of Hurricane Ian. I have another three thousand pine cones to pick up.

Some content sourced from the HuffPost blog, “Thirteen Things You Never Knew About Pine Cones…”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Lost in a Dense Fog

When I first learned to play the piano, it was a challenge to master the weight of the keys. Weighted keys allow the piano’s sound to be louder or softer depending on how hard you press them down. Since fingers vary in size and shape it takes practice before the index and ring fingers (for example) generate the same volume on the keyboard. In hindsight, if I’d chosen the theremin over the piano I could’ve developed the technique much faster because this instrument makes its music without weighted keys. In fact, the theremin makes music without any touch at all.

I should’ve posted about the theremin closer to Halloween because it produces one of the eeriest sounds you’ll ever hear. Click the red preview button on this list of Theramin Sound Effects and tell me if you disagree. Doesn’t your mind conjure up a ghostly apparition floating in the darkness of a haunted house? The theremin provides the perfect soundtrack for all things scary. New York Times critic Harold C. Schonberg once described the theremin’s wail as “a cello lost in a dense fog, crying because it does not know how to get home.” I like that (and it’s much classier than “pig squeal”).

How the theremin creates its unique sound involves too much science to keep your attention today (and more words than I want to type). Suffice it to say, the instrument has two antennae; a looped one to control volume and an upright one to delineate pitch. The player’s darting hand/finger movements – touching nothing but the air in between – create its spooky music.

Now watch the following performance. Seeing the theremin played is almost as jaw-dropping as listening to it.

I find the theremin to be a fish out of water next to traditional orchestra instruments, yet there are several other weirdos out there. The bassoon features a tiny mouthpiece attached to a massive piece of black pipe and requires a deliberate overbite to create its nasal tones. The glockenspiel (which gets points for a fancy name) is really nothing more than a metal xylophone. The tam-tam is a giant gong, lucky to be struck more than once in a performance. And the hand saw doubles as a musical instrument when you warp and release the blade (and sounds pretty darned close to the theremin). But each of these outliers requires physical touch to make their sounds. The theremin sings with mere jabs of the air.

[Author’s aside: Every time I write theremin my brain wants to override with Theraflu, the over-the-counter cold and flu medicine (“Discover the Powerful Relief!”) You don’t find many thera- words in the English language – therapy being the only other one I can come up with. I’m happy to announce I need neither Theraflu nor therapy at the moment.]

The theremin was invented in the 1920s by Russian physicist Leon Theremin (whose life story involved a lot more than science). RCA picked up the commercial production rights but the musical instrument never really developed a following. Instead, its soprano voice showed up randomly in music and movies. If you recall the Beach Boys’ hit, “Good Vibrations” you should also recall the theramin solo at the end of the song. You’ll also hear its moan in the opening bars of Fleetwood Mac’s “Little Lies”. But the theramin seems a more logical fit in the soundtracks of horror and science fiction movies like The Spiral Staircase, The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Thing from Another World, and more recently, Monster House.

My favorite account of the theremin (and with this I close) is a collection of melodies recorded and blasted into outer space back in 2001. The effort was an attempt to communicate with other worlds, including Gershwin’s Summertime and Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. The name of this collection? First Theremin Concert for Extraterrestrials. Seriously? We chose the theremin? Wouldn’t these classics have sounded a whole lot smarter on the instruments they were originally written for? No wonder the (more intelligent) races out there haven’t stopped by our little planet to say hello.

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

Local Fare for the Win

When you pick up and move to a new town 1,500 miles from where you used to live, “getting the house in order” is a little overwhelming. Thirty years in the same spot creates a lot of favorite “thises” and preferred “thats”. So whenever my wife & I step away from the endless unpacking, we’re trying out supermarkets, large-animal vets (for the horses), and restaurants, to figure out which ones best replace those we chose time and time again in Colorado. And here’s what we’ve quickly discovered about life in the South (of the U.S.): good Mexican food is a tough ask.

Let’s take a bit of a detour. (Don’t worry; we’ll be back on the main highway before you know it.) In a surprisingly candid post from fellow blogger Brilliant Viewpoint, her recent trip to Rome and Florence determined pizza – at least the classic Italian version of the pie – is not what it used to be. The writer suggested the crusts are like cardboard, the mozzarella chunky and unappetizing, and the pizza itself a little soggy. Having spent a college year in Italy (when I survived on pizza and not much else), I found her conclusions shocking. Maybe this is why Domino’s – they of the generic-but-convenient home-delivered product in America – decided to give Italy a try? It’s true. In 2015, a Dominos franchise opened several stores across Italia to capture the then non-existent delivery market. It almost worked.

No matter what the state of Italian pizza these days, Domino’s Pizza stores in this of all countries lands on my “you’ve got to be kidding me” list (alongside Starbucks coffee). Put yourselves in their shoes to understand the absurdity of it all. You’re an Italian. Pizza was invented in your country, which has thousands more years of history than America. You can choose from any pizzeria on any block of any street in your town and the homemade product will be excellent. Yet you’re going to call Domino’s to order a mass-produced American knock-off instead? At least Baskin-Robbins was sensible enough to stay away instead of going head-to-head with gelato.

You shouldn’t be surprised to learn – after a seven-year run – Domino’s Italian franchisee filed for bankruptcy in April. “Of course“, you say. “Their product just couldn’t compete.” Well, that’s not quite the story. It was more about pizza delivery itself. Remarkably, Italy had very little delivery before the pandemic. You wanted a pie back then, you went out into the streets and got it. But just like American restaurants, Italian pizzerias did whatever it took to survive the pandemic years, and that meant delivery to front doors. Domino’s thought they had the market cornered before they ever entered it. Next thing they knew, everyone else was doing the same thing.

No matter the reason, I’m happy to say arrivederci to Domino’s Pizza in Italy. Franchise food doesn’t feel right in a country with so much history and wonderful local food. Shortly after my college year in the 1980s, I learned a McDonald’s restaurant somehow landed a lease at the base of Rome’s famous Spanish Steps. That’s like painting a mustache on the Mona Lisa. America has much to offer the world, but fast food is not our proudest accomplishment. I’m not even sure it’s an accomplishment.

Let’s get back to the main highway now. Up top we were talking about Mexican food… er, the lack of it, in the American South. It’s true, if our new little town is any indication. Yes, we have several options to beat a sit-down at Taco Bell, but they’re only a whisper better. Everything looks and tastes so generic. What should be salsa roja inside of enchiladas tastes more like pizza sauce. What should be a margarita with the sublime afterbite of tequila tastes like syrupy lemonade. The chips might as well be Doritos. Yet you look around and the restaurant is packed. These people don’t know what they’re missing, but they seem happy enough. As a result, just like Dominos, I don’t expect a Mexican restaurant from outside of the region to waltz into town and do well.

My theory on good Mexican food goes like this: the further west and south you go the better it gets. Colorado and Tex-Mex trump anything east of the Mississippi. Arizona and Southern California fare trump Colorado and Texas. In other words, my favorite Mexican place in my new hometown is destined to be close to my front door. In fact, it’s inside my front door. It’s my kitchen. Time to start making my own margaritas and enchiladas.

Some content sourced from the CNN Business article, “Domino’s tried to sell pizza to Italians…”, and the Brilliant Viewpoint blog.

(No) Separation of Church and State

This weekend my wife & I packed up the last of our things and moved from Colorado to South Carolina. We’ve decided the lower elevation and milder temps of the “Palmetto State” make better sense for our retirement. But instead of a moving truck, we trailered the horse (and the dog and the barn cat) along with our suitcases. A half-ton of horse means driving in the slow lane, our top speed 65 mph without blowing a gasket. And driving through Kansas in the slow lane – or any lane for that matter – feels like forever.

The western edge of Kansas, at Interstate 70, is an encouraging starting point as you leave Colorado. You pass an attractive “Welcome Center”, a convenient place to take a break and learn a little about the “Sunflower State” before you venture further. More importantly, you notice an immediate improvement in the road conditions. Kansas, unlike Colorado, not only earmarks tax dollars to keep its highways pristine, the state actually spends those dollars accordingly (instead of dipping into them for other purposes). Our horse – standing on four legs the entire journey – appreciated the smoother ride, if not the triple-digit temps.

Twenty or thirty miles into Kansas, the sobering reality of America’s Heartland sets in. For one, you could lay a ruler on the hundreds of miles of Interstate 70 and hardly need a turn of the steering wheel. For two, you realize every town along the way – save Kansas City to the far east – looks exactly the same. Water tower. Cell phone tower. Church. Gas station. Fast food. A surround of corn fields. Lather, rinse, repeat. It’s like someone drew up a generic template of a town and laid it down a couple dozen times along the interstate. Doesn’t help to keep a slow driver alert, especially when you’re on cruise control.

But suddenly, mercifully, and completely out of nowhere, you see little Victoria, Kansas on the horizon. Not Victoria, British Columbia (though it might feel like you’re driving all the way to Canada). Victoria, Kansas, with its mere 1,200 residents and one square mile of town. And right in the middle of Victoria, rising out of the earth as abruptly as the Rocky Mountains, sits the Basilica of St. Fidelis, better known as the Cathedral of the Plains.

You can probably spy St. Fidelis from fifty miles away as you approach, but you certainly don’t believe what you’re seeing. Kansas is as flat as a pancake yet Victoria boasts a cathedral worthy of a spot in Rome. The first time I saw St. Fidelis several years ago (driving a whole lot fast than 65 mph), I thought it was the Kansas heat bringing me a heavenly mirage. I half expected the clouds to part (even though there weren’t any) and a host of angels to surround those tall twin spires.

But St. Fidelis is a lot more real than a mirage. It was built in the early 1900s by German and Russian immigrants, each of whom pledged to haul six wagonloads of limestone and another four of sand from nearby quarries. St. Fidelis predates any kind of construction equipment so the entire structure was raised by hand. These industrious Kansans knew the meaning of hard work.

St. Fidelis boasts forty-eight handcrafted stained-glass windows, valued at more than $1M. Its beautiful procession of Romanesque-style arches hovers above marble floors. The cathedral was “elevated” to the status of Minor Basilica by decree of the Pope in 2014, and earned a place on America’s National Register of Historic Places. In other words, there’s no separating this church from this state. Not bad for an old building in a tiny metropolis in the middle of cornfields. I only wish I’d had the time to exit the interstate and head down to Victoria for a closer look.

The Sunflower State has adopted the Latin phrase ad astra per aspera as its motto. It means “to the stars through difficulties”, representing the aspirations and hard-working spirit of the state. I’d say the Cathedral of the Plains is Kansas’ perfect example, wouldn’t you?

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

Floral Fire

Billboard ranks “Firework” as Katy Perry’s best-selling single, with millions of downloads since its 2010 release. The self-empowerment tune “skyrocketed” to #1 on Billboard’s Top 100 at the time and ranked in the top five on twenty other charts worldwide. “Firework” also “sparked” an award-winning music video, and Katy has since performed the anthem live at two presidential inaugurations and during the halftime show of the Super Bowl. Searching Wikipedia for “firework”, therefore, it comes as no surprise to be asked, “Do you mean the song or the low-explosive pyrotechnic device?” Today, I choose the latter.

For the first time in countless July 4th celebrations I can’t speak to having seen a single overhead firework display this year. No giant “willows” with their graceful descending trails of sparks; no “peonies” where those same trails radiate in straight lines from the center; and no “horsetails” (my favorite) where each trail bursts a second time, followed by a crackling, glittering shower of fire. Also, no “grand finale” where it looks like the entire sky is splitting open to some fiery furnace beyond.

From the vantage point of our house, we used to count on the fireworks show from the nearby U.S. Air Force Academy. That show has been canceled for the last ten years because of budget cutbacks. We also used to bring blankets to the shore of a nearby lake, where we were treated to a “small-town” fireworks display funded by donations from the public. Today, that display has been swallowed up by a bigger all-day “Festival on the Fourth”, where you pay for parking and walk a mile or two just to secure a spot on the lake several hours ahead of the fireworks. Even so, we thought we’d see bits and bursts from one of the other nine shows scattered around nearby Colorado Springs. Nope, not so much as a snap, crackle, or pop.

Palmer Lake, CO 2022 fireworks display (photo courtesy of local resident Bartley Willson)

Fireworks are nostalgic for me, with two distinct memories from childhood. The first, in the 1970s, brings me back to the beach of the Pacific Ocean in Los Angeles. Back then the only commercial displays seemed to be over the ocean. My parents would grab a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken and several blankets, and the whole family would find a place on the beach where for several hours, we’d eat and play as twilight became dark, in anticipation of the late, late fireworks show from the end of the nearby pier.

The second memory, a decade later, also brings me to the Pacific Ocean but to a beach further south near San Diego, where we’d shoot off our own fireworks (from the “Safe and Sane” boxed collections my dad brought home every year), followed by an overhead display from the nearby county fair. Every childhood July 4th was the same: food, fun, and fireworks; lots and lots of fireworks.

In 1976 – America’s bicentennial year – the firework display in New York City included an unforgettable “waterfall” effect off one of the bridges. This year, that same July 4th display (sponsored by Macy’s) ballooned to a two-hour televised extravaganza with over 2,000 blasts and effects per minute. I’d say Macy’s department stores and their profit margins are doing just fine, wouldn’t you?

I shouldn’t be surprised to learn fireworks were invented by the Chinese (well over a thousand years ago) but here’s a less-obvious bit of floral fire trivia: Disney is the largest consumer of fireworks in the world. It used to be – back when their single amusement park was California’s “Disneyland” – you’d only catch a Disney firework show on summer evenings (directly above Cinderella’s castle), and only if you stayed until just before the park closed. Today you’ll find displays at any one of the twelve Disney parks, in any month of the year. For the record, only the U.S. Department of Defense purchases more explosive devices than Disney.

There’s more firework trivia, of course. The very first iterations were empty bamboo shoots, creating a mild popping sound when ignited because of natural air pockets. Seeking more pyrotechnics, the Chinese added explosive chemicals to the shoots to create firecrackers”. Eventually they figured out how to launch and propel their creations, and the overhead fireworks display was born, in an impressive rainbow of chemical colors. But take note; you won’t see a blue firework very often. Blue requires an infusion of copper at just the right temperature, and the “cool” color tends to get lost next to the “hotter” reds and yellows.

I’m still puzzled why I didn’t hear so much as a “BOOM! BOOM! BOOM” aftershock (to quote Katy Perry) of a firework display this year. Maybe most of my fellow Coloradoans kept the bursts and blasts to the ground instead, from what they purchased at the local firework stand. Those of you living in New Jersey, Massachusetts, or Delaware can’t relate because consumer fireworks are illegal in your states. Not so much as a sparkler in your hand. (Which may be a good thing since sparklers can heat up to 2000 ºF) So you probably did what I did this year – simply watch a recap of the Washington D.C. grand finale on your smartphone. It was the only floral fire I could find.

Some content sourced from the BuzzFeed article, “17 Things You Probably Never Knew About Fireworks”, the Macy’s Fourth of July Fireworks website, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Emerald Greens

In the final lines of our national anthem, Americans sing, “O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave”. Those labels are a little dicey today. Are we really free? Are we really brave? It’s a debate best left to more intellectual bloggers. I’m simply looking for less controversial words to describe the United States. Take Ireland, for example. The little republic is nicknamed “The Emerald Isle”. Of this, there can be no doubt. Before your flight even touches down, the window seat view is nothing but endless rolling green hills. And not just any green.

See what I did there? Inside of a single paragraph I distanced myself from heavy topics like freedom and bravery, and now I’m focused on the color green. Bravo, Dave! Now then, let’s continue.

Emeralds have always been my favorite of the precious gems. In the jewelry shop it’s hard to ignore diamonds (because they’re everywhere), yet somewhere in the glass cases you’ll find the more colorful stones. Blood-red rubies. Royal blue sapphires. Modest little garnets (my birthstone). And green, green emeralds. I’m drawn to emeralds because green is my favorite color. On that note, do you realize your favorite color never changes? Nobody says, “Well, I used to like purple but now my favorite color is orange”. You can move to another country, switch up your career, or overhaul your wardrobe, but your favorite color is a constant.

I digress (sorry). I have emeralds on the brain for good reason. My wife & I just celebrated thirty-five years of marriage (thank you very much), and she hinted emeralds might be a nice gift. So I paid a visit to my jeweler. I told her I was looking for something understated, maybe earrings and a necklace. She showed me a pretty set, where I thought my only decision was the shape of the stones (Round? Square? Pear?). But then she threw me a curve when she said, “Would you prefer natural or lab-created?” Huh? Why would I buy my wife anything other than the real thing?

Here’s the rub of the green. Lab-created gems are the real thing. They’re “chemically, physically, and optically identical to their natural counterparts.” So why choose one over the other? Cost. Lab-created gems can be significantly less expensive, especially as the number of carats grows. In other words, easy choice, right? Wrong. The lab-created gems – at least in my jewelry shop – were small enough to be the same price as the naturals. Instead, my decision came down to color.

Was I tempted by the blue-green clarity of the lab-created? Absolutely. Did I choose them? Absolutely not. I kept coming back to the emeralds in my brain. Call it natural green, kelly green, or Irish green, but I prefer the green on the left. And I think my wife did too.

Liz is wearing $6.5M worth of emeralds and diamonds

I’d like to share some trivia on today’s topic but – warning – it’s a little pedestrian. Emeralds are one of the twelve birthstones (conveniently, the month of May). Emeralds come from the mineral Beryl (as do aquamarines). Their rarity makes them “precious”, alongside diamonds, rubies, and sapphires. They’re delicate, susceptible to chipping. Finally, emeralds are considered, among other things, a symbol of rebirth.

A section of the Florida Panhandle is called the Emerald Coast for the area’s clear, green water. The Wizard of Oz lived in the Emerald City for reasons only Oz fanatics can explain. And little Ireland, deservedly, earns its nickname for those rolling green hills, as well as Irish jewelry, made primarily from green gems (if not all emeralds).

I saved one more fact for last, mostly to make points with my wife. After I bought her the earrings and necklace, I said to my jeweler, “By the way, it’s silver for the 25th anniversary and gold for the 50th, but what about the 35th?” She replied, “Emerald” (even though several Google searches suggest jade). Whoa. I didn’t plan on that coincidence but I’ll certainly take the credit. After all, my wife is one-quarter Irish. My daughter’s name is Kelly. And my favorite color is green. How could it be anything but emeralds?

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

——————–

Lego Grand Piano – Update #17

(Read about how this project got started in Let’s Make Music!)

Today’s build demanded more of an overhead view so you can see the difference between last week and this week. Bag #17 – of 21 bags of pieces – earned me the row of seventeen black caps you see in the second photo (on top of the piano wires), as well as the wide stand for sheet music, just behind the keyboard cover.

The piano is a remarkable instrument. When you press down on a key, you’re actually pushing a “hammer” up against the underside of a piano wire, creating a musical sound (or “note”). When you release the key, a black “damper” (one of the seventeen I just built) drops down on the top of the wire, silencing the sound. Add in the functions of the three pedals at the base and you should consider the piano a musical mechanical marvel.

Running Build Time: 12.5 hours. Musical accompaniment: Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumblebee. Leftover pieces: 2

Conductor’s Note: The Bumblebee is a brief orchestral interlude of an opera, composed well over a hundred years ago. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s furious little piece, when played on the violin, really does sound like a buzzing bee. It’s only 84 seconds in length, but you find yourself catching your breath after you’ve heard it. It’s even more remarkable when played on the piano, the fingers almost a blur. Have a listen to the audio file here. I’m sure you’ll recognize the tune from some of today’s movies and cartoons.

Not-So-Sweet Jesus

If you take a stroll down your supermarket’s greeting card aisle today, you’ll find Valentine’s Day cards long gone and Easter cards in full force. It’s only the start of Lent, yet the aisle is bursting bright with pink bunnies, yellow chicks, and painted eggs. I won’t be sending Easter cards this year (haven’t done so since my kids were little) but I will give up something for Lent. I’m thinking “foods with added sugar”.

I know what you’re thinking. We live in an age where giving up tempting foods isn’t as difficult as it used to be. Whole foods are so available we have an entire chain of stores called “Whole Foods”. Sugar has so many alternatives I should revise my sacrifice to “foods with added sweeteners“. Even processed foods have matured to where “healthy snacks” are pleasing to the palate. I have options.

Doesn’t matter. Dropping added sugar will still be a challenge. My desk drawer (second one down on the left if you’d like to help yourself) is replete with black and red licorice, and some form of chocolate, be it a bar, a cookie, or those little baking morsels straight out of the bag. Giving up licorice for forty-six days and nights won’t be a stretch, but NO chocolate for all of March and half of April sounds like an eternity. What can I say? Everyone has a weakness and mine is chocolate. It speaks to me from my closed drawer with “come hither” seductiveness.

I’ll bet you’ll find thousands of blog posts about chocolate with a quick search. I’ll bet you’ll find entire blogs about the sweet stuff. I just checked my blog’s history and unearthed a dozen takes on chocolate (including this one from a year ago talking about the things people give up for Lent. Chocolate tops the list). So let’s make it a baker’s dozen because I invented a chocolate challenge. I call it the “85 Percent Ascent”.

Let me explain. There was a time when I liked my coffee sweeter than a Starbucks Sugar Cookie Frappuccino. Together with artificial creamer I’d dump in sugar cubes or pour the white stuff straight from whatever you call those pourable glass containers. That was a long, long time ago. At some point (probably, er definitely my college year abroad in Italy) I realized coffee tasted pretty good all by itself. I started to wonder why you’d “taint” coffee by adding the other stuff. But let’s be real: it’s not like you go from Frappuccino to Americano cold turkey. You’ve got to ease into the one extreme from the other. Slowly I backed down the sugar (like years-slowly). Slowly I backed down the creamer. One day I eliminated the sugar altogether. Today, I still go with a tablespoon of (almond-coconut non-dairy no-sugar) “creamer” but otherwise it’s straight dark-roasted coffee for me. I even fancy an espresso shot every now and then.

It’s a good analogy for my Percent Ascent challenge. 85% cocoa content is seriously dark chocolate (meaning not sweet at all). If your go-to is a Hershey’s Bar or a Milky Way you’re down below 50%. And moving from 50% to 85% is a serious ascent with chocolate. It’s like standing on top of Kilimanjaro and seeing how much further you have to go to summit Everest.

A recent article on chocolate lists nine criteria for the healthiest and best-tasting bars in the world, including:

The first ingredient must be cocoa, cocoa mass, or chocolate liquor (not sugar or milk chocolate). In other words, put down the Nestle’s Crunch; it’s not even close.
Ingredients must include real cocoa butter instead of (cheaper) vegetable oils. 95% of America’s chocolate manufacturers just dropped out of the race.
The cocoa must come from an “Equator country” like Ivory Coast, Ghana, or Peru.
The bar should be labeled “Organic” and/or “Non-GMO”.
Bonus points: should be fairly traded and ethically harvested.

As if the search isn’t already difficult, NOW you have to go with >85% cocoa content. Not so hard to find actually, especially if you go online. I purchased a bar from five different manufacturers meeting every one of the above criteria, including Green & Black’s from the UK, and Theo from Seattle. All five bars fall between 85% and 90% cocoa content (and yes, 100% is an option). All five use scary words like “strong”, “super black”, and “extreme” to describe their product. Not gonna lie; I’m a little nervous to take a bite.

As bitter as these chocolates are sure to be, I still have to give them up for Lent. Every one of them has “added sugar” (albeit way down on the ingredients list). So let’s just agree – I’m not going to break my Lenten covenant on a food that doesn’t even taste sweet. Think I’ll opt for a piece of fruit instead. I just hope it doesn’t come from the Garden of Eden.

Some content sourced from the “Experience Life” / Life Time article, “How to Find the Healthiest Dark Chocolate”.

——————–

Lego Grand Piano – Update #7

(Read about how this project got started in Let’s Make Music!)

I worked outside of the box again this week. Bag #7 – of 21 bags of pieces – assembled a second layer on top of the section I can’t yet attach to the bigger section behind it. From “Last week” to “This week”, you can see I worked almost entirely in black, which suggests I’m creating more of the outside of the piano.

Despite the majestic wash of Debussy’s “La Mer”, Bag #7 was completed in less than thirty minutes, with only one heart-pounding moment where I thought I’d left out pieces in the Bag #6 build. Thank goodness I was wrong. Still on track.

Running Build Time: 6.0 hours. Musical accompaniment: Debussy’s La Mer and Prélude à l’aprés-midi d’un Faune (try and say that ten times fast). Leftover pieces: One (clearly an extra, whew!)

Conductor’s Note: Today’s build wasn’t very exciting, so it helped to have Debussy booming in the background. However, as I turned the page of Mr. Instruction Manual in anticipation of Bag #8, I saw pictures of… long, thin, reed-like pieces. Holy buckets, Maestro, it’s time to make this piano a stringed instrument!

I Just Turned 59.99589!

It may interest you to know there are real Memory Lanes in the bedroom communities of every American state. Look them up on Google Maps (I stopped searching after finding dozens.) Must be fun to be one of those residents and see the look on someone’s face when you give them your address. No, I don’t know anyone who lives on Memory Lane, but me, I kind of do; one with no stripes or sidewalks. Mine is paved with sixty years of material, some of it worth a visit; other items best left alone. All of this “Dave” stuff is somewhere between my ears and today it’s time for a big – okay, little – reveal.

59.99589. If you’re reading this post the day it was published, I’ve just revealed my age to ridiculous exactness. The 0.99589 amounts to 363 out of the past 365 days. You could say I’m still in my late fifties (very late, Dave), but more accurately you’ll say I’m either sixty on the dot or a mere forty-eight hours removed from it. Do I feel old now? Of course not! Er, until I calculate my age in months. I’ve spent 720 of those bad boys. For Pete’s sake, what have I been doing all my life?

Well, let me answer that question. In fact, let’s make it a game because then you get to play too. Think about the last sixty years (or in your case, however many decades you’ve been around). Now let’s create a list – off the top of our graying heads – of up to ten significant world events in the timeframe of our years. No, no, no; not the events you learned in the history books, but the ones with lasting, maybe even personal impact. Here are mine, in no particular order:

9/11 (2001)
COVID-19 (2020-???)
San Francisco Bay Area earthquake (1989)
Space Shuttle Challenger (1986)
America’s war in Afghanistan (2001-2021)
Apollo rockets (1961-1972)
Colorado’s Black Forest wildfire (2013)

I don’t have enough time to explain my choices (after all, I only have forty-eight hours until I”m a “sexy-genarian”) but trust me; these seven came to mind in a heartbeat. Now arrange them in chronological order to paint an interesting picture. My childhood was inspired by Apollo rocket launches (courtesy of black-and-white TV’s); my young adult years by two disasters – the Challenger explosion and the devastating earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area; and my adult years by big-bad-ticket items like terrorism, war, wildfire, and a global pandemic. Sadly, not one of these events makes anyone’s “good list” (am I a product of headline news or what?). But that’s not to say my sixty years have been altogether bad. Quite the contrary.

Now, here’s where the game gets more interesting. Make a similar list as above, but include up to ten significant events of a personal nature. These are the formative moments, where you’re not the same person after they happened as you were before. Leave off relationships (including marriage) and having kids, because most of us have or will have those in common. Let’s see now. My eyes are closed, I’m in a thoughtful trance, and I’m typing, all at the same time (a man of many talents, no?) Okay, pencils down. Here’s my “formative” list, also in no particular order:

Corrective eye surgery (1977)
I-survived-but-the-car-didn’t rollover (1984)
Immersive year of studies in Rome, Italy (1982-83)
Traded California’s coast for Colorado’s Rockies (1993)
First job <McDonald’s> (1975)
All things Boy Scouts (1973-1978)
Architecture career ends, tech career begins (1993)
All things basketball (1974-1979)

Again, I’d love to wax on about my choices but I’d turn 61 before I’d be done typing. Instead, sort my formatives from earliest to most recent. Notice anything? All happened between the ages of 10 and 30. My “clay was molded’ in a mere one-third of my lifetime. Not really true, of course. Ages 1-10 – none of us remember much of those. But now I hear you saying, “So Dave, what have you been doing for the last thirty years?” Well, you know the answer already The same thing as most every other red-blooded American male. Raising a family. Making a living. Loving my wife. Loving my life.

I predict my sixties will be my greatest decade; just you wait and see. I’ll witness another significant world event or two (maybe even a “good one”!) I’ll break my thirty-year run of nothing and come up with at least one more formative experience. I’ll write another 520 blog posts (and you’ll block a chunk of your calendar to read them). But let’s be real; this is just musings about my sixties. I’m only in my fifties. My account still shows a credit of forty-eight hours.

——————–

Lego Grand Piano – Update #2

The concert is underway! (read about my hesitant warm-up in the post Let’s Make Music!). Bag #2 – of 21 bags of pieces – started out innocently enough, with big pieces and easy assembly. My maestro-confidence overfloweth.

Suddenly things got v-e-r-y complicated in Mr. Instruction Manual. Tiny, tiny pieces! Mechanical components! Cables! Batteries! Here’s last week’s build, and then below, this week’s additions for comparison. Enlarge the second photo for a better look at the colorful, scary-looking “spindle”, running top left to bottom right. I have no idea what it’s for but it connects to the gray/white motor (at least I think it’s a motor) just behind it. I count forty-five little Legos on the spindle, each required to be positioned exactly as you see them. Almost walked off the stage when I was done with that step.

Running build time: 2.5 hours. Musical accompaniment: Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 “Emperor” (three times through!) Leftover pieces: 5 (Conductor’s note: Last week I only had 1 leftover piece. 5 = concern. I need to double-check this week’s work before moving forward. Safe to say you can’t go back and “repair” after the fact).