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Friday May 18, 2001
"Speeches are like the horns on a steer: a point here, a point there, with a lot of bull in between."
Austin postcard for sale on ebay
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the joys of flying When I get up I feel sleep-deprived. I've pretty much packed the night before so I just shower and dress and work a little. I open the door to get the paper and the smoke smell is strong. If, while the hotel smelled like smoke anyway, it burned, that would be trouble.
I caught up with a colleague in the lobby to share a cab to the airport. I was soon enough eating a breakfast sandwich which tasted like greasy cardboard and getting on a flight to Atlanta. For the record, you can have Delta. I had an aisle seat but all the overhead was taken and I had to put my (one) bag under my feet. Kids were screaming. (Disney withdrawal?) But then it got worse. I was on some model plane with three seats on each side in coach and I had a window seat. And the seats are still very close together. And every single one was taken. It was claustrophobic. I got no overhead space again. I could get my laptop under the seat but I could barely get it between the seats to do so. I had to get up and go to the bathroom. There wasn't room to unfold my newspaper or eat the sack lunch. The Junior League type next to me seemed less concerned and she carefully picked the turkey off the sandwich and read from a stack of shelter magazines, giving long, careful consideration to an article on coffee tables. Back in Austin at last, it took my bags forever to show up and then I cabbed home. I was exhausted. I did a little work and then had a nap. Imagine a theater with seats surrounding a space. Something improvised in an open space. Some place you might see innovactive plays and really feel a part of the action. Now double or triple the size. Insert an orchestra several levels up in scaffolding and behind a scrim. Get a large cast of extras. Insert Bizet's Carmen. Singers, gypsies, bullfighters, drinking, the soprano has great voice and cleavage but has to die. Imagine the audience, to some degree, went along and dressed like gypsies. Imagine you could take drinks in and that late returners from the two intermissions became a part of the action. It was great! Go see Austin Lyric Opera's Carmen. Heck...if your not in Austin, come here and go see it. It's that good. Well, in my opinion.
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