Open for Business

Interior of Westfield Centre in San Francisco. 

This was the long awaited grand opening on Thursday Sept 28th of the expanded shopping mall. It is a very impressive place and I will return but right now I want to wait until the crowds thin out a bit. It was packed on Thursday by the lunch hour. My favorite parts are the food court and the Bristol Farms grocery on the lower level. They are have also done a beautiful job of attaching the old Emporium dome onto the new building as well as cleaning it up. In some ways it reminds me of the fairly new Siam Paragon Mall in Bangkok which I like very much as well.

Either this building has ptoltergeists or the ghost of Sally Stanford is now hauting it. (This lot is where one of her houses used to exist.) My new neighbor upstairs is fairly quiet but there are time when I think he is not home that I will still hear noises I cannot identify especially around four o'clock in the morning. Those sometimes wake me up but I never hear anything aother than what sounds like tapping noises or some light object being moved around. It is definitely not footstep and believe me, I know when his girl friend is there. Should I beware of things that go bump in the night???

Coup in Thailand

I am saddened by the recent turn of events in Thailand and hope that the situation will quickly resolve itself. What worries me most is that should it drag on or turn ugly and violent that the U.S. Government would use it as an excuse to intervene in the internal affairs of the country and that would only make matters worse. I sent an e-mail to a friend in Bangkok yesterday and received a quick reply. My friend said he is fine and that it is quiet there. In a country that depends so much on tourists it would be a shame if this were to drag on and kill the goose that laid the golden egg. Thailand has made so much progress in recent years and has developed very nicely. I and many others would be highly distressed if everything came unraveled all because of one renegade politician (Thaksin).

Here is the latest from the Bangkok Post.

More news.

Sorry?

So the pope is sorry for the "reaction" to his remarks but apparently not sorry for having made them. There is a difference there folks. Is this the same old German Rotweiller that we have all come to hate over the years? Is he trying to re-instigate the crusades of which the Catholic Church is so guilty of. If extremist Muslims have conducted crusades in the past, we must not forget the sins of commission and omission by the church in Rome either.

Pocket full of notes, but mostly lint

After enjoying the opening of the opera season last weekend I must wait an extra week before hearing the second production. Actually, Un Ballo in Maschera was the opening night opera but I was not there that night. BTW, the review for it were not as good as for Die Fledermaus. My viewing of Tristan und Isolde has been delayed until the 22nd of October because I will be in Paris on the 14th. However, while there I will get to see Salome with Catherine Nagelstad and Chris Merritt at the Paris Opera (Bastille Opera House).

A good friend of mine indicates that I make a mean Cosmopolitan (Cosmo for short) which is dry and not too fou-fou. The ladies might like something sweeter but he doesn't so we will have one of our periodic private Happy Hours at my place. We also have "cheap" Happy Hours which consist of some inexpensive (but usually good) red wine the from Bargain Bank store on Polk Street or from Trader Joe's.

My recent physical exam turned out well especially with my low cholesterol reading. Only one area of potential concern with a recent partial blackout so an Ultrasound has been ordered to check the carotid arteries. Hopefully they are not constricted, that the brief partial blackout was due to dehydration but one question remains in my mind. If one becomes dehydrated, does one suddenly get an intense headache on both sides of the head which lasts longer than the blackout sensation.

I am really looking forward to the opening of Bloomingdale's and the expanded Westfield San Francisco Shopping Center. That willl happen on Thursday, the 28th of September.

Well, I must get my ears lowered so I am outa here for now.

Die Fledermaus

The 06/07 opera season at SFO got off to a good start last night with "Die Fledermaus". The women excelled in this cast with Adele sung
by Jennifer Welch-Babidge and Rosalinde sung by Christine Goerke in her SFO debut. Both women must return ASAP. Christine Goerke has a big powerful but fluid voice which ably handled the florid passages in the Strauss score but she also sings heavier roles such as Chrysothemis, Elizabeth (Tannhauser), the title role in "Ariadne auf Naxos" and Senta in "The Flying Dutchman". She seemed to be the
audience favorite if my applause meter was correct. Jennifer Welch-Babidge was bright and perky as Adele. One of her roles is Olympia in "Tales of Hoffman" and she even borrowed from that last night as she "ran out of energy" in one aria and started slumping over but revived moments later although no one wound her up as Olympia would have been. Her other roles include Marzelline (Fidelio), Norina (Don Pasquale), and Violetta (La Traviata).

On the male side I believe that counter-tenor Gerald Thompson (a Merola graduate and now an Adler Fellow) was outstanding as Prince Orlofsky. This was the first time I had ever heard a counter-tenor in that role. Baritone Wolfgang Brendel, not heard here in a number of years, still has beauty to his voice that has not been marred by the years in opera. Unfortunately the role of Eisenstein does not permit long sustained lines so one cannot hear him at his best. He sure was athletic in the jail scene as his jumped on or over chairs and shimmied up pole and did other acrobatic stuff. Speaking of the jail scene, we have the speaking role of Frosch which was deftly handled by Jason Graae making his SFO debut. He waltzed his way into the act with a broom, sweeping the floor at times and carressing it at other times finally ending that bit with a reference to Broomhilda. Other jokes included a reference to the fact that the jail looked better when Martha Stewart was there but this jail was complete with is own orchestra but they were in the pit. He then walked over to
the edge of stage, made a few remarks about that which elicted groans and mumbles from the members of the orchestra. He did reveal however, why they were in the pit. It was due to so much "sax and violins" (ugh, more groans). He also remarked opera being in so many languages and even in English it was difficult to understand, at which point he walked to the edge of the stage to look up at the Super Title screen to see what he was saying.

The one gag that got the most laughs was Prince Orlofsky's entrance. As the Russian prince entered his first lines were sung in Russian with Super Titles projected in the Cyrillic alphabet. By the way, Prince Orlofky's entrance also involved two Borzois dogs which he had on a double leash but quickly handed off to someone else.
A couple of negative notes on this performance. The tenor Vale Rideout, making his SFO debut, was less than desirable. I did not like his voice at all. His is a graduate of Merola and appears to have run into vocal problems since then. He was unacceptable as Alfred and unless he improves will be unacceptable to my ears in any other role. Also early in the first act there were a few moments when it seemed
like Donald Runnicles could not keep the orchestra and singers together.

It was a fun filled evening and a nice way to begin the new season. It is a sad commentary on contemporary life however when pre-curtain announcements must be made before every act regarding pagers and cell phones. The first one however was a funny one. That one was made by General Director David Gockley who referred to the revenge of the Bat which would be nothing compared to the revenge that your seat mate would deal out should your cell phone ring during the performance.

OK, I am still here but not sure why or where or whatever. I've been preparing for a vacation journey to Paris as well as other locales and I have been doing a lot of reading. Also, a friend in Vallejo had rotator cuff surgery recently so I have been commuting up there to help him get to the doctor's office and with shopping, etc. The one thing I have learned from this is how restfull and easy it is to take the Baylink Ferry from the Ferry Building in San Francisco to the ferry terminal in Vallejo. Then my friend's house is an easy commuute on a Vallejo Transit bus from there. That ride is about a ten minute ride. The ride on the ferry is approximately 55 minutes in duration so I get more reading done there as long as there are not a log of rug rats around. I ran into that situation last Saturday when the lower deck of the Bay Bridge was closed and the ferries were running at capacity. I was the last one on the 10 AM ferry from Vallejo. I should have waited for the 10:20 AM ferry which would have been less crowded and probably would have had less kids as it was not going on to Fisherman's Wharf.

My reading recently has been mostly non-fiction. At the moment I am into the last few pages of Dark Ages America by Morris Berman. Next up will be American Theocracy by Kevin Phillips. Politics in America has really been frustrating in recent years and these books only confirm my worst nightmares. I can only say that I am glad that I not 20 something now. The future is bleak indeed.