Six Months and a Week To Go ...

May – June – July – August – September -- October plus a week into November: OMG, what an effing bore this is going to be. Some 134 million of us will vote (unless the tedium simply drives us underground until it’s all over) but I dare say 132 million of us already know who we’ll vote for. So to sway some 2 million wishy-washies, more politely called swing voters, PACs, wealthy individuals and true-believers will spend a couple of billion dollars. That’s 1,000 bucks a head! What relief it would be if they could simply gave them ten C-notes each and save the rest of us from all the flak. Well if the presidential race bores, what of Congress? For political junkies like I, watching Congress over the next six months will be excruciating – watch grown men and women act like teen-agers doing everything possible to avoid cleaning up their rooms. Congressional and Senatorial races here and there may prove interesting. But again, millions will be dumped into those districts by outside interests trying to tell constituents how to think and vote. Don’t constituents have a right to be insulated from meddlesome outsiders, a right to think in peace and make thoughtful decisions? Wouldn’t it be great if we could limit political contributions to constituents only? But that has as much chance of passing Constitutional muster as getting corporations ruled non-persons. This bastardization of representative government is what we call our “democracy.” There's got to be a better way.

Musical Hat Trick

Those of you who know us know how important music is to me and even more, to Ann. So this personal report of three distinctive treats in the past three days is just that, a personal remembrance of delights.

Thursday, the Seattle Symphony featured Augustin Hadelich playing Dvorak's Violin Concerto. Augustin gave a superb performance, apparantly note-perfect judging by the enthusiastic applause of the orchestra. (Seattle audiences are unreliably enthusiastic....) And he followed with an encore Paganini Caprice 24 -- stunning! What made it so very special for Ann and me is that we have met and dined with Augustin on occasion; he's become a regular at the Seattle Chamber Music Summer Festivals. To know his story makes his artistry all the more awesome. At 15, this promising prodigy, on his family's Austrian farm, was engulfed in flames when the machinery he was maintaining exploded and the barn caught fire. Life-threatening burns covered his torso, face, and bow arm. He was fighting for life; his violin career apparantly over. But two years later, still in recovery treatments, he raised that bow again and the violin became his life. His playing reflects his sweet, gentle and deep appreciation for the beauty of life and music.

Saturday morning: La Traviata, live from the Met at the Pacific Place theatre. I've seen it three times before; Ann several more. But this! Willy Decker's unique interpretation is the ultimate opera -- moving, simple, music made drama, drama made music. Natalie Dessay is no coquettish Violetta, but a despairing courtesan trapped in the expectations of the beautiful party people, unable to cross over into respectability and happiness, unable to fend off time. Each set of society petty, cruel, and self-centered, ready to sacrifice Violetta to their vanities. Dessay, ill leading up to the performance, admitted in an intermission interview that she had missed a note. But acting, feeling, living the role more than compensated for those few (Ann among them) who noticed.

Saturday evening: SRJO's gala at FareStart. If classical music is all about the notes, jazz is all about the transitions, the conversation. A quintet of SRJO musicians created music together and with singer Greta Matassa. Here was the epitome of jazz -- musicians listening to each other, extemporaneously talking to one another, blending thoughts and ideas but each retaining individual identity. To see Thomas Marriott listening, head leaning forward, eyes closed, then raising his horn to add in, soto voce, under Mike or Randy; then signalling he'd like to speak, and taking the lead. Greta scatting and Mike riffing, talking back and forth, taking each other to new places neither had heard before, and all coming back together in sync. Magic. Music composed as it was being played, ethereal, never to be heard that way again. Magic.

A hat-trick of musical delights. Wish you could have been there....

Sharing Joy

Earlier, Ann and I got a call from a dear friend who wanted to share joyful news that a long friendship has burst forth into love, and that a career-shifting job is in the offing. Many of you will try to guess but we will neither confirm nor deny about whom we're talking; that's not the point. This post is not about our friend or about such news, but about how good it feels to receive a call to unguardedly share elation and joy.

Ann and I are grinning still, an hour later. The call confirms the caller's care about and trust in us -- to share elation without reserve. And we know the caller knows how much we care, in turn. The other side of the coin, of course, is a call to openly share sadness and despair. Such calls have come -- and will.

But for now, have joy? Share it...!

Rain, Rain, Go -- For God's Sake, Go ...

… some place you are needed. Seattle got 7.2 inches in March – twice the average March since data collection began in the 19th Century -- and half-again more than March, last year. Even the most sodden Seattleite is fed up. Yes, I know, weather isn’t climate and No, this isn’t another column about polar bears – but wouldn’t it be just plain prudent to act as if human behavior was partly responsible? Dick Tompkins and Bryna Webber, dear photographer friends, have been documenting global water issues – in Iceland, Bhutan, Kenya and Antarctica; that’s a Masai herder boy moving his family’s skin and bones cattle to Tanzania after this three-year drought in Kenya.

The water issue? Distribution – too much here, too little there. And water issues are dangerous issues – while men may fight over alcohol, they kill over water.

A second thing Seattle is famous for is entrepreneurial opportunity. We’ve got a lot of smart guys – smart water guys over at Bill and Melinda’s new place; Bezos is a smart distribution guy. The world’s two largest boring machines – that’s boring machines, not boring machines – just punched though under Capital Hill and the Federal Cut to bring light rail to the UW. There’s an idea thirty years late; we turned down Federal money back then to bring light rail to Seattle. Portland was next in line; now they have real light rail, not those cranberry-colored toys running around Amazon’s new neighborhood. Meanwhile, we are building a huge plant to dump fresh water run-off into the salt water of Puget Sound. Federal dollars are available for boring machines and pipelines and storm-water run-off plants.

Why don’t some smart guys and Federal money start piping rain, if not to Africa, at least to Nevada or Texas? A lot more friendly than piping oil – and just as many jobs.