LOOKING FOR MISS WRIGHT

SPECIAL TO THE SOMERS RECORD (05-11-17)
 
     Last Saturday we stopped by the Somers Library to help mark the 50th anniversary of the bequeathment of the farmstead that became Reis Park. If you're unfamiliar with bequeathments, my advice is to swallow first before saying it out loud. Some informal  booths were set up to help celebrate the event and the town. The Friends of the Somers Library were there; they sponsor various programs and performances. I am a Friend of the Library and we're going out for cocktails on Friday, and we may gossip, just in case anything gets back to you.

     There were some local authors in attendance, a folk-rock duo, some games for the kids and a face painting booth. For my particular face they suggested vinyl siding instead of paint. All of this took place on land given to the town of Somers by lifelong resident Caroline Wright Reis upon her death in 1967.

     We walked through the back of the park up to her house, now a museum opened on this day for visitors. Even though Caroline Wright Reis lived her entire life there, the early American period furnishings have been restored to the grounds. If they wanted a museum with 1967-era decor, the house I grew up in had plenty of linoleum and wood paneling, and historians are still trying to explain why.

     Caroline Wright was an orphan at the age of 12, a fact that possibly explains how she became a leading figure in the community. She graduated from Pratt Institute at a time when college-educated women were relatively scarce. After that she ran her farm as a successful businesswoman, her new husband away much of the time. Walter Reis was a button salesman, and if he didn't travel to support the business, sales fell, not to mention everyone's pants.

     She was active in local politics as a member of the Civic Club, and in her later years became a philanthropist who donated substantially to local causes. She was an artist, and her works hang on the homestead walls. She never had children, but she pictured herself with a family, literally. A self-portrait of her rocking a cradle sits on an easel behind the very same cradle, unless that was the cat's cradle.

     A rare and impressive contraption called a megalethoscope is displayed on the second floor. Through it, specially prepared photographs play tricks of light and perspective that are unlike anything digital photography can produce. Do not miss it.

     Caroline Wright Reis seemed to have no use for conventions and gender confinements. A photograph depicts her with her bicycle, and back then it was considered un-ladylike to ride one. I STILL consider it un-ladylike to ride a bicycle, especially if I haven't shaved. Caroline Wright Reis may have been an early feminist without even knowing it.

     To see the material connections to her life spread before you is to put yourself in her shoes for a short moment, which is as much as I can take since I wear a size 11. That's what museums do, and in this case, as in all others, you can imagine life in history's continuum and notice that the trappings are different, but the people are the same.

     By the way, if I die, and I'm planning not to, and if I decide to leave my land to the town of Somers, they are going to take one look at my lawn and say "Thanks, but no, thanks." They might even skip right to the "No, thanks."

I HEAR A SYMPHONY

SPECIAL TO THE SOMERS RECORD (04-27-17)

     A few weeks ago we attended a performance by the Westchester Philharmonic at Purchase College, an experience I recommend highly. It's a slowly dying art. Not the playing of classical music, which is carrying on as strong as ever, but the listening to it, which requires you to get up out of your soft, comfortable chair, turn off that re-run of Columbo that you have seen at least three times (the one with Robert Vaughn) and get into your car without spilling your coffee.

     The orchestra is not going to come to you, you have to attend the performance of the philharmonic in order to hear all those instruments playing in philharmony. It's a whole lot different than going to see a a concert today, where a pop-goddess lip-syncs an entire performance while dancing an extensive broadway-style choreography with a snake, wearing hot pants and a bra top (the singer, not the snake), writhing around completely naked (the snake, not the singer), all that trouble for a very mediocre song.

     Back in MY day, no one would stand for that kind of crap at a concert. You went to hear the MUSIC, and if Alice Cooper happened to bite the head off of a chicken and spit it into the audience, well I can't be held responsible for that. I don't know if the chicken was real, I don't even know if the audience was real, but certainly the music was.

     Kids, if you're listening out there, I don't want to sound like your Dad, so go find your own Dad to give you this speech. Wake him up- he's probably in the den right now taking a nap, or out mowing the lawn while listening to Beyoncé on his iPhone. By the way, it wouldn't kill YOU to mow the lawn once in a while.

     Anyway, the performance featured the formidable talents of one of classical's premier trios, Jaime Laredo on violin, Joseph Kalichstein on piano and Sharon Robinson playing the cello. The orchestra presented very accessible works by Mozart, Bach and Beethoven, whom you may have heard of. Mozart was a child prodigy. I know what a burden that is, because I was considered a child prodigy when I was 40, and everyone was amazed at how advanced I was for a 12 year-old.

     Beethoven was completely deaf for the last ten to fifteen years of his life, when he wrote some of his most important works. He was even more deaf when his wife asked him to take the garbage out. Because he was deaf Beethoven's other senses heightened, and for instance he smelled really, really good.

     There was no maestro for this performance, so everyone was on the honor system to play only their own notes, and it looked like everyone was conducting themselves appropriately. But pay closer attention the next time you go to the symphony: the bass violin player is over there looking at the piccolo player with palpable disdain. He has to haul around an instrument the size of a Chevrolet Silverado, and the piccolo player produces a tiny flute the size of a magic marker from his dress shirt pocket, and starts prancing about the place doing somersaults.

     And the first violin player, whom the soloists faun over as they pass by, stands up at the end of the performance. Did you ever look at the second violinist while all that is going on? Her face tells you that she thinks SHE should be standing at the end, or at least slightly stooped over.

     All of them want to beat up the triangle player, who gets paid a full share for playing one note in the middle of the performance that sounds like someone passing you on their bicycle- he doesn't even have to know anything about music, just a little geometry. Why, excuse me, but isn't that an isosceles triangle you have there? If there was a conductor there he wouldn't put up with ANY of it, and if you don't like it you can just make other arrangements.

ITS A JUNGLE UP THERE

SPECIAL TO THE SOMERS RECORD (04-27-17)

     There are people who refuse to fly in an airplane because a thousand things that could go wrong play in an endless loop inside their heads. But there is always room for one more disaster. Or two or three. Last week a United Airlines passenger was forcibly dragged from an overbooked plane as horrified passengers looked on. The fallout from the incident has left a Chernobyl-sized wake throughout social media.

     The CEO for United had one of those public relations roller coaster rides where the car gets stuck on the rails and sits there for several hours until someone comes in a crane to rescue it. At first he said the passenger, who is a doctor, was a jerk who deserved to get kicked off the plane. That didn't fly any better than a DC-10 with a runny nose cone. About every hour or so he gave another press conference to send up a trial balloon that came crashing down through the Twitter-sphere. By the end of the day he was hailing the guy as a modern-day hero. That's how you go from CEO to "embattled CEO" in a few easy lessons.

     The executive, Oscar Munoz, assured everyone that he had "reached out" to the doctor, probably to try and drag him back onto a plane, since he has said he is now too terrified to fly. New company guidelines for dealing with overbooked flights hastily been issued. First, the flight staff is to cast a fishing line down the aisle with a $1000 dollar bill attached to it, and slowly reel it out the hatch to see if anyone follows it. If that doesn't work, they are authorized to toss a few expensive-looking carry-ons down the emergency chute. Under NO circumstances is the crew allowed to drag anyone from their seat kicking and screaming. They MUST wait until they are asleep, then curl them into a ball and roll them out.

     On a different United flight the same day a scorpion dropped from an overhead bin and landed on a man's lap. The crew immediately charged the man a fee for bringing a pet on board. Then they billed the scorpion for changing seats. They quickly assessed the arachnid another fee for the in-flight snack. Once they had its credit card information they hit it with a shoe and flushed it down the toilet. Which went so smoothly that United Airlines added it as a fourth option to the above procedures. Meanwhile the passenger was not stung, but as a precaution the flight staff called for any doctor who hadn't been forcibly dragged off the plane.

     A day later it came to light that a couple on their way to their wedding was tossed off a United flight for trying to upgrade into seats that didn't have someone already occupying them. They were expelled from the aircraft, thankfully before it had taken off. And since it was a destination wedding, they simply changed the destination to the tarmac. The wedding was really nice, with the word "United" emblazoned all around them, and an open bar with really, really tiny bottles of booze.

     Following these incidents, the company stock fell precipitously. But these and other fiascos could have been more deftly handled by a better public relations staff. There are some qualified people who are now becoming available, such as Chris Christie, Bill O'Reilly and possibly even Sean Spicer. From a promotional standpoint, you should have a specific direction in mind that you want to take the conversation to. If that direction is straight down, so much the easier. By the way, if you don't think that this column makes that much sense, it's because content may have shifted during flight. Please leave your seat belt fastened.

THE JUNK IN YOUR TRUNK

SPECIAL TO THE SOMERS RECORD (04-20-17)
 
     This Saturday the 22nd, my friends Margaret and Judy will be volunteering at the
third annual E-Waste Recycling Day at the Somers Intermediate School, along with Mike from City Carting. I will be there, personally overseeing the Easter candy recycling project. You don't need all those calories lying around your house, and besides, those chocolate eggs are wrapped in foil that may contain stronthnesium, a metal so deadly that I might have made it up. So bring the candy over to the school and I will see that it is disposed of properly.

     By the way, if you do have too much junk in the trunk, this is your lucky day, since it will only cost you five dollars to dispose of all the e-waste and scrap metal you can fit into it. Keyboards, monitors, appliances, electronics items, computers and televisions are welcomed. Even old washers and dryers will also be accepted. Take all the wet socks out of them first so that you don't air your dirty laundry all over town. Grief counselors will be on hand for those bidding a final farewell to their beloved CD players and VCRs. My thoughts and prayers go out to everyone whose flip-phone's usefulness was taken way too soon. I thought the "E" in E-waste stood for "Electronic," but it actually stands for "EverythreemonthsApplecomesoutwithanewphoneandnowImstuckwiththisuselessthing."

     But how did we get to this point? In 1998 I was sitting pretty, with my 386 computer and a 20 MEG HARD DRIVE! How could anyone ever need more than that? Now a computer practically has an expiration date, and your laptop might start to go bad even before whatever used to be in that Tupperware in the back of your fridge.

     Don't just toss these items in the trash- Mike and his staff are professionals. There may be elements inside them that are dangerous, possibly criminal elements. Barium, for instance, is a metallic substance that becomes highly unstable when it comes into contact with air. I've known at least two guitarists with exactly the same properties, and they were hard to get rid of. We can help you with any other questions that you have, like whether or not you should recycle a tricycle more than three times.

     Your five dollar donation will benefit the Somers PTA fund, so it's an investment in our youth. I guess we'll have to wait several years to see if it was a great investment, but I spent a whole lot more than five dollars on Rite-Aid stock, which is tanking big-time at the moment. By the way, a few years ago on a whim I went to visit my own elementary school in Chappaqua, and all the chairs and desks seemed ridiculously small. When I was a kid going to school there, all the furniture was normal sized. I don't know why everything shrank so much, but maybe the PTA will look into it.

     So stop by the Intermediate School from 9:00AM to 2:00PM and say hello to Mike, Margaret and Judy. I'll be there at around 11:00, rummaging through your stuff and making fun of you for buying a Tandy computer. Gidget, the recycling watch dog, will be ready for anyone getting rid of tennis balls. I am even told that Rick Morrissey might be there, the Somers Town Supervisor. Which is good because I should not be running around unsupervised.

SEASON'S TEASINGS

SPECIAL TO THE SOMERS RECORD (04-13-17)

     I know that spring officially begins on March 20th, but I always think that Easter marks the true start of the season. Even so, the way things have been going, you never know when a nor'easter is going to screw up your Easter. Usually by this time at least five Yankees are mired in atrocious slumps, the buds are on the plants, even the hydroponic ones, and three weekends worth of plans have been rained out, so I hereby proclaim that spring has sprung.

     When New Yorkers say that they love the change of seasons, the one they love to see change the most is winter. Now that the snow has melted I can see that the snowplow guy has taken out every single driveway light. In the fall I had driven some reflector posts into the ground next to each light so that he would know exactly where to aim.

     But all that is behind me now, and the arrival of spring has made me gay. I see a rabbit near the garage and I call out, "Hello, Mr. Bunny, if you were made of chocolate I would have eaten your ears off by now, and you wouldn't hear I word I'm saying." I just meant gay in the happy sense, but I still have to wonder why I love the Carpenters so much.

     When I was a young lad my sisters and brother used to get together the night before Easter for some old-fashioned egg decorating. We put the hard-boiled eggs in water that contained different colored dyes that were so weak you could wait until the Fourth of July for your Easter egg. Even our language was more colorful. The eggs were dying for so long that they were definitely dead when we got through with them. When we went to sleep my Mom would hide them around the house for us to find the next day. My Mom had limited powers of recall, and sometimes a few weeks hence a malodorous smell would waft its way out from the fireplace area, and we knew we hadn't located all of the eggs, causing a Cinco de Stinko around May fifth or so.

     They used to have a big Easter egg hunt at the Mount Kisco Country Club that my parents took us to each year. I spent the whole time hiding behind a tree, in case the eggs came to hunt me down- I didn't know if they were armed or not. I saw a bunch of golf balls and almost jumped out of my skin.

     In Washington at the White House they traditionally host an egg roll. Thousands of people show up, so they better get more than just one, unless it's huge. And don't forget the soy sauce. It's a chance for the president to let his hair down and show that he is human, if either are possible.

     The tradition started with First Lady Dolley Madison back in 1814. In 1878 during the presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes, the festivities moved to the White House lawns after an act of Congress forbade children from playing on the grounds of the Capitol. During the Nixon administration, a staffer dressed in a rabbit suit was introduced as the Easter Bunny. He wandered around greeting children and possibly surveilling them. George W. Bush's Easter Bunny was none other than Sean Spicer. So if you are near the White House on the Monday after Easter, don't stand at the bottom of any hills, or you'll be walking on eggshells the whole day.

NO PAIN, NO GAIN, NO FUN

SPECIAL TO THE SOMERS RECORD (04-06-17)

      It's been a few weeks since my shoulder surgery, and I'm doing just fine. I'm already operating heavy machinery- our blender weighs a ton and I need a cocktail. I'm in physical therapy now, and my shoulder is definitely coming along, since I didn't want to leave it at home.

      When I walked into the clinic there were five or six other people there, one was shrugging her shoulders 30 times in a row, another was standing on one foot throwing a ball against a net and another was pushing against the wall, seemingly trying to hold it up. It was like I was in a loony bin. Which I suppose is not a politically correct term- I should have said "nut house."

      The assistant started by putting a heat pack on my shoulder for 10 minutes, then he put an ice pack on me for another 10 minutes. If a low pressure system had blown through the room there would have been a hailstorm. Then the physical therapist took my arm and bent my shoulder into an acute angle. I winced in pain, she smiled a little, and while she had me in this position she got my credit card information, including the expiration date and the three-digit code. I started to confess some things that I am not proud of, and then I made up some things I didn't even do, but am not proud that I thought of.

      After I stopped weeping she tried to make it up to me by massaging the bones in my neck and shoulder area, but since I'm unbearably ticklish, I start giggling uncontrollably. I laughed, I cried, I was hot, I was cold. It was like going through menopause while watching "The Notebook" at the same time.

      When she left the room I looked around at the other inmates and said in a loud whisper, "Don't you people see what's going on here? They're TORTURING us! Didn't you ever see "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest? We've got to get out of here!" They just kept shrugging their shoulders and throwing their balls around.

      I was about to make a break for it when the physical therapist returned and hooked me up to this machine that delivers little shocks to the affected area to stimulate it electrically. She asked me some questions, like, "How are you doing so far," and "Do you think you would recommend our program to others?" And depending on my answer, I got a bigger or smaller shock.

      I don't have one of these machines at home, so I improvised by trying to shock my shoulder with spurious allegations that I am wire-tapping it. At the physical therapist's there are electrodes hanging all over it, so the allegations may actually be true. My shoulder and I have discussed the whole wire-tapping thing. Why would anyone waste their time wire-tapping Trump Tower? This is someone who broadcasts even his dopiest thoughts to millions of people on an hourly, even minutely basis.

      There is a bird who tweets nonstop right outside my window at home. It tweets about 50 times a minute, every minute of the day, every bird-brained idea that it has, and rarely has it said anything useful. Certainly the same could be said about me, but I beat you to it, didn't I?
 

BLUE GENES

SPECIAL TO THE SOMERS RECORD (03-30-17)

     My wife got tickets to the Blue Man Group, which we had never seen and sounded like a fun and farcical evening. Beforehand we ate at a restaurant next door to the theater, I think the place is owned by Robert De Niro. I mentioned it to my wife and she says that every time we go to a restaurant I say that I think it's owned by Robert De Niro.

     All the waitresses there look like runway models, which means they are super tall and they have to bend way down to take my order. My waitress talks so low I can't hear anything come out of her mouth, but I can see her lips move. It looks like she says, "I love you," although she might have said, "veal cordon bleu." I started to wonder how many times in my past that people I thought loved me actually loved veal.

     Some of the tall models look like they could be transgender, and I silently thank god I don't have to go on dates anymore, because it's a whole different world out there. It doesn't seem like good form to ask someone you just started dating if they are transgender, it's like asking someone if they are pregnant. There are questions you simply shouldn't ask unless you already know the answer. I used to say the same thing to my math teacher in high school.

     At the end of the meal we argue over the dessert menu. I tell her that chocolate is a "super food," and my wife says it's not. Well what about a chocolate napoleon? Didn't Napoleon conquer Rome? Well it turns out he didn't, but I argued that nothing beats a Twix bar, so it should be a "super food."

     Next door the show was starting. The Blue Men are a lovely shade of royal blue, the same color I get if I try to blow up too many balloons before a birthday party. I don't know how they got that way, or if they came from some faraway place, like Ulster County. They maintain an emotionless expression the whole time, which is good, because if they got envious and mad at the same time, what color they would become?

     They got right down to business, playing a three-part drum solo while spraying the drums with colored liquids from squeeze bottles. They made such a shambles of the place I could see why they don't let you bring liquids onto an airplane. From there they did some audience participation gags involving oozing gunk, and at the end encouraged people to unroll massive amounts of toilet paper into the crowd. It doesn't hurt to be prepared I guess.

     I don't want to give the plot away since I was planning to charge you for it, but suffice it to say that there was none. It had the flavor of being back in kindergarten, where the best fun you could have was to make the biggest mess and the most noise. Most people eventually outgrow this type of behavior, and if not they run for Congress. But once in a while you just need some mindless mayhem. After they were done the theater looked like my office on a Friday.

     I think the take-away from all this was that no matter what color you are, whether you are black, brown, blue, magenta, or burnt sienna, you can make a mess and have fun with toilet paper. Even if you are an orange person in a White House, lighten up now and then!