Winter in LA 2017 Pt II

Jessica Lang Dance, Ahmanson Theater, February 17 

We weren’t familiar with Jessica Lang Dance. But the company’s appearance at a major downtown venue, The Ahmanson Theater at the Music Center encouraged us to attend. So glad we did. We discovered Lang’s innovative choreography performed by an exceptionally strong company in a theater perfect for dance.

Tesseracts of Time, the opening piece, a collaboration with architect Steve Holl performed in four parts to music by contemporary composers won is over immediately.  The opening dance to music by Pulitzer Prize winning minimalist David Lang, really just a series of clicks and tones, quickly established Lang’s gift to find the movement in the music. Buffalonians are familiar very familiar with Morton Feldman’s deliberately arrhythmic compositions. It was a daring choice to choreograph the second part to his music, a challenge met by employing video to create an otherwise physically impossible dance where onscreen performers appear and disappear among unfolding geometric patterns.

We’ve seen ever greater use of video in dance. Much of White, A Dance on Film is video on a full stage sized screen. This allows seeing dance larger than life, to see the dancer’s movements in ways never possible otherwise- close up or sped up or in slow motion.

All of the dancers in this company are exceptional. Two in particular stand out. Kana Kimura is slight and extraordinarily lithe. Milan Misko is the biggest dude I’ve ever seen in a dance company. His strength combined with her elasticity allows Lang to create astonishing duets.

This is a young company, just five years old. Choreographer and Artistic Director Jessica Lang is in her forties. As her creativity continues to evolve and her company continues to prosper, world class status is certain.

 

 

 

“Salome” by Richard Strauss, LA Opera, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. March 2

 

 Our first disappointing LA Opera production, mostly for lack thereof. Instead of the stagecraft we’ve come to expect we got a marginally employed lackluster set. I blame director David Paul for the poorly posed presentation and for soprano Patricia Racette’s portrayal of Salome as more of a petulant princess than a sensuous seductress. Characters addressing each other stood at opposite sides of the stage facing the audience and declaimed. Only Allan Glassman as Herod showed any real acting chops.

(Racette redeems her performance with her long, powerful, erotic and perverse song to the served to her on silver head of the prophet, Jochanaan) 

The evening was saved by the glorious music of Richard Strauss. I mean, how often does one close one’s eyes during the dance of the seven veils so as to concentrate on the music.

 

 

 

Jane Monheit, Catalina Jazz Club. March 3.
It took a coupla numbers, probably until her first ballad, before I tumbled in. From then on it was a total groove hearing this superb singer live. What pipes!
What an extraordinary sense of style! She’s truly in the great tradition of chick jazz singers.

 

 Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, March 8

 

Last big ticket this tour. A big deal: six performances over five days in the largest venue in LA. Because pretty near everyone who knows me has heard my Alvin Ailey story at least once, I’m pledged not to repeat it. The gist of it is I know what to expect from this venerable dance company – challenging choreography performed by some of the best dancers in the world. All those expectations were met and exceeded. Again.

They performed four pieces:

·       R-Evolution, Dream- My personal favorite. In the company’s tradition: street dance and balletic dance and a least a coupla breath taking moments, all of it steeped in African-American culture. Choreographed by company veteran Hope Boykin and inspired, she writes, by the speeches and sermons of Martin Luther King. I’d advise anyone who might be put off by the politics to just watch the dancers.

 

·       Untitled America – hard core choreography, intense, much of it performed to thrums and clicks or spoken word. The piece asks a lot of the dancers; they excel. Inventive and compelling and crucial to the advancement of the art.

·       Ella – the only dance on the program choreographed by Artistic Director Robert Battle. Two chicks dance out the one and only Ella scatting. Great fun

·       Revelations by the late Alvin Alley. I’m sorry but this signature piece seems dated to me now. What once was ground breaking choreography seems light and uncomplicated in view of all that came before it this evening. And there is that touch of watermelon. Still, the LA audiences loved it. Cheering wildly at every turn. No really, I’ve never encountered that in a dance audience before

Winter in LA 2017

 

Picasso and Rivera LACMA February 1

 

Our second only in LA experience (the first involved driving forty-five minutes on busy Freeways to catch a flic…one that will likely never play anywhere near Kenmore…but I digress.) We took in the pricey but all together worthwhile Picasso and Rivera: Conversations Across Time at LACMA. Who knew they knew each other? Not I. We learned that both had been admitted to their country’s academies at an early age, both showed similar novel approaches to the classicism in which they were instructed. (I’d seen Picasso juvenilia before; Rivera’s, seen in this show, are remarkably similar.) We learned that Rivera moved to Paris in the early 20th century and fell in with Picasso, Braque and Gris where he took up cubism. Picasso and Rivera cubist paintings, hung by each other are remarkably similar. Each, of course, went their separate ways and are best known for the work they did subsequently. Rivera is best known for his murals and since they can’t be put on display here, the elaborate cartoons that went into the murals’ creation sufficiently substitute.

This is one of the best curated shows we’ve seen. That includes a very large screen video that lovingly pans over details of Picasso’s Guernica and Rivera’s mural at the City College of San Francisco then finishes with each successively full screen.

 

 

   

“The Abduction from the Seraglio” by Mozart

 LA Opera, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, February 8

Rivera is best known for his murals and since they can’t be put on display here, the elaborate cartoons that went into the murals creation sufficiently substitute.
This is one of the best curated shows we’ve seen. That includes a very large screen video that lovingly pans over details of Picasso’s Guernica and Rivera’s mural at the City College of San Francisco then finishes with each successively full screen

We’ve come to expect superior staging from this company and we weren’t disappointed. The opera is transposed to the 1920’s. The set, the interior of a lavish railcar on the Orient Express, can slide side to side revealing attendant cars. Scenery rolls by outside. The costumes, lighting, the direction, all of what is stagecraft was world class. The performers were all technically terrific if not exceptional. Best in the cast: Basso Profundo Morris Robinson as Osmin (right) and Soprano So Young Park as Blonde (far left). Canny opera goers Shelley, Jennifer, Erik and I, were, if not blown away, left pleased that we’d been there.


Los Angeles Philharmonic, Walt Disney Hall, February 10.

 

We’re back in the magnificent Disney Hall. It’s a chance to hear new music in one of the world’s great music venues. Composer Thomas Adès is at the podium. He opens with Sibelius, “The Bard”, light but lovely harp dominated, followed by Saint-Saëns lively “Danse Macabre”. Then it’s the US premier of his own “Lieux Retrouvés” re-orchestrated from a piano-cello duo into a full on four movement cello concerto. Collaborator Steven Isserlis plays cello with abandon. Potent stuff and in its third movement, moments of incandescent beauty.

 At intermission we explore the ever so many contrasting parts of this striking Frank Geary structure. We discover that the reason the section in which our seats are located is called the garden level is its doors open to a charming garden. It’s a cool rainy night so we don’t linger but mark where, when next we’re back here, we’ll head with our intermission flutes of champagne.

 The second half of the program is given over to Adès’s “Totentanz”. This is the West Coast premiere of Adès’s 2013 composition. The original soloists, mezzo Christianne Stotijn and baritone Simon Keenlyside, are here. Set to an anonymous 15th Century text, Keenlyside intones death calling out the highest to the lowest to his lethal dance while Stotijn replies as each faces his or her fate. It’s at times powerful, a knight meets death in a barrage of percussion, at times breathtakingly beautiful, a young maiden’s lament in duet with death soars to Wagnerian heights. This is a unique and powerful composition, a strong candidate to rank with the best new music of the new century.

 

 Steven Isserlis plays cello. Potent stuff and in its third movement, moments of incandescent beauty.
At intermission we explore the ever so many contrasting parts of this striking Frank Geary structure. We discover that the reason the section in which our seats are located is called the garden level is its doors open to a charming garden. It’s a cool rainy night so we don’t linger but mark where, when next we’re back here, we’ll head with our intermission flutes of champagne.
The second half of the program is given over to Adès’s “Totentanz”. This is the West Coast premiere of Adès’s 2013 composition. The original soloists, mezzo Christianne Stotijn and baritone Simon Keenlyside, are here. Set to an anonymous 15th Century text, Keenlyside intones death calling out the highest to the lowest to his lethal dance while Stotijn replies as each faces his or her fate. It’s at times powerful, a knight meets death in a barrage of percussion, at times breathtakingly beautiful, a young maiden’s lament in duet with death is Wagnerian. This is a unique and powerful composition, a strong candidate to rank with the best new music of the new century. Steven Isserlis plays cello. Potent stuff and in its third movement, moments of incandescent beauty.
At intermission we explore the ever so many contrasting parts of this striking Frank Geary structure. We discover that the reason the section in which our seats are located is called the garden level is its doors open to a charming garden. It’s a cool rainy night so we don’t linger but mark where, when next we’re back here, we’ll head with our intermission flutes of champagne.
The second half of the program is given over to Adès’s “Totentanz”. This is the West Coast premiere of Adès’s 2013 composition. The original soloists, mezzo Christianne Stotijn and baritone Simon Keenlyside, are here. Set to an anonymous 15th Century text, Keenlyside intones death calling out the highest to the lowest to his lethal dance while Stotijn replies as each faces his or her fate. It’s at times powerful, a knight meets death in a barrage of percussion, at times breathtakingly beautiful, a young maiden’s lament in duet with death is Wagnerian. This is a unique and powerful composition, a strong candidate to rank with the best new music of the new century.

The Longbow Hunters

 

The Longbow Hunters

Mike Grell (Author and Illustrator)

DC Comics (Publisher)

Green Arrow started out as one of the lamest characters in the DC Universe, a Batman knock-off with a bow and arrow.an Arrow car, an Arrow plane, an Arrow cave and a kid sidekick. In the socially conscious early 70’s he was recast as the DCU’s resident leftie. And then in 1987 along came writer-artist Mike Grell. Grell was already a fan favorite, the creator of two popular series, Warrior, a sword and sorcery series, and Jon Sable, Freelance, tales of a mercenary bounty hunter. Starting with The Longbow Hunters, Grell began changing everything about Green Arrow.  Gone were all the super hero accruements. Gone was the spiffy plumed cap replaced by a green hoodie. Gone was the domino mask. He moved Green Arrow and his lover, Diana Prince, the former Black Canary, to the very real city of Seattle. Grell made two very major changes. He  replaced GA’s quiver of trick arrows (how he ever got the boxing glove arrow out of his quiver without dumping all the other arrows was never adequately explained) with the real thing, deadly sharp broad head arrows. And he brought Oliver Queen, Green Arrow’s alter ego, firmly into middle age subject to the crises faced by a man in his forties.

 

As both writer and artist, Grell was employed dramatic layouts to tell his story. Each page was an artwork in itself.

The Longbow Hunters was the equivalent of a pilot episode. Its immediate success quickly lead to a monthly series. Grell penned eighty issues in which he chronicled the lives of the characters he had introduced in Long Bow Hunters, none more so than the brave but conflicted Oliver Queen.

Over three decades the Longbow Hunters has never been out of print.

Mike Grell will be the very special guest at the Buffalo Comicon, September 17^th and 18^th.

Something there is About a Wall

 

I called my friend Matt the contractor

Me: How much would it cost to build a wall?

Matt: That depends on many factors.

Me: Like what?

Matt: How big is the wall?

Me: Say ten feet tall, ten feet long and two feet wide.

Matt: What is it made of?

Me: What are my choices?

Matt: You’ve many, wood, bricks, cinder blocks, concrete…

Me: How about concrete?

Matt: Poured in place concrete or pre-formed concrete panels like those noise barriers on the Interstate?

Me: Poured in place.

Matt: On what kind of surface?

Me: Does that matter?

Matt: Sure, you don’t want your wall to fall over so it has to be anchored somehow. That depends on the surface. You’d use different systems for say, a wall built on sand as opposed to a wall built on rock.

Me: What if I’m not sure?

Matt: I can probably figure some sort of average.

Me: Ok, is that it?

Matt: Nope. Where is this wall?

Me: Does that make a difference?

Matt: Well, sure. The building materials have to be brought to the site so the cost of the materials will depend on the distance to the site. If you want to pour concrete you’ll need roads for the concrete delivery trucks. If there aren’t adequate roads, you’re going to have to build them. Do you want lighting anywhere long this wall? Do you want security cameras? Once you’ve made those decisions, you’ll have to engage a design professional to draw up the plans. You can’t build anything anywhere without a permit and to get that you’ll need and environmental impact study. It all adds up.

Me: Enough! Just give me quick estimate.

Matt: Fifty thousand dollars.

Me: So if a ten foot wall costs fifty thousand, how much for a mile long one.

Matt: About twenty-six point four million

Me: What would a one thousand nine hundred and thirty-three mile wall cost?

Matt: Why one thousand nine hundred and thirty-three miles?

Me: That’s the length of the US – Mexico border.

Matt: OK, lemme see, a little over fifty-one billion.

Me: Wow, it not that simple.

 

Matt: It never is.

 

Time in TO

It had been awhile. In the past we’d been frequent Toronto visitors, often three or four times a year. In the years Jennifer lived in Toronto and sublet a room in her place to us, we were often in Toronto every other weekend. More recently we went elsewhere spending time in LA, NYC, SF and DC. Time to renew acquaintances had definitely arrived.

Our default world class dinning spot in Toronto is Canoe, the beautifully appointed restaurant on the fifty-fourth floor of the TD Center featuring gorgeous views of the nighttime cityscape. We walked there from the Hilton via the Underground. Cocktails at the bar, martini and bellini, then seated. And sad to say, we feel that Canoe has lost a step.

“The chef has a taste for sweet,” Shelley said offering a sample of her Bibb lettuce appetizer. The crouton had a cinnamon taste, the vinaigrette dressing, what little there was of it, was tangless. My fluke crudo was accompanied by crème fraiche, tiny white grapes and a plum sauce all but burying in sweetness the pungent oily taste that anyone who grew up on the Jersey Shore knows is the true taste of fluke.

My entrée was lamb. I prefer my lamb crispy and garlicy and this was neither and rather bland. It was accompanied by pedestrian pieces of sweet and white potato and a bite sized bit of carrot.

”I’m dropping Canoe to two stars,” I said.

“I’m only dropping it to three,” said Shelley. “My salmon was quite good.”

She had also ordered a side of sautéed mushrooms which we shared. They were the saving grace although, truth to tell, Shelley’s cooked at home version is their equal.

 

Saturday arrived, a sunny and mild late winter day.  We’d no plan for the day. We’d done the ROM, done the AGO lotsa times. And besides on a Saturday, they’d be full of families which means hordes of bored kids. A quick search turns up the Aga Kahn Museum, just a short drive away.

The aim of the Aga Khan Museum will be to offer unique insights and new perspectives into Islamic civilizations and the cultural threads that weave through history binding us all together. So says the Aga Khan, 49th hereditary Imam of the Shia Ismaili Muslims and founder of the museum.

The museum, opened less than a year and a half ago is a striking building in a lovely setting. There are gardens and reflecting pools, but they’re all put to bed for the winter. Inside, there are two floors. The first is an extensive collection of Islamic artifacts from several different Islamic cultures and several eras. There’s next to no depiction. Instead the pages from the Qur’an, the decorated vessels, tiles and metal work are all about the design, compellingly intricate, often incorporating religious text in complex calligraphy.

We weren’t there long when a musician playing an electric cello began filing the gallery with mid-eastern inspired, clearly improvised music.

Taking a break in the café, we agreed that while we were quite taken by all we’d seen, it wasn’t easy to get an overall sense of the culture from which it all emanated. The captions we agreed weren’t very helpful. The Aga Kahn’s desire for “new perspectives” needs a touch of tweaking.

The second floor is dedicated to contemporary art from the Mideast. One exhibit was an installation by acclaimed (we’re told) Iranian photographer, poet, and filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami titled “Doors without Keys”. He had photographed doors: old, mostly wooden doors, all locked somehow, most often with a padlock. The photos were processed for effect giving them a remarkable depth. Blown up to full size they were mounted along with scraps of Kiarostami’s poetry in a sorta labyrinth. As I wandered through, pausing before each panel, an altogether pleasant feeling ensued. Art can affect you that way sometime.

This is the second time recently that I’ve encountered contemporary Iranian art. The first was last year at MOMA. Both times I was struck by its modernity and creativity. I’d grown used to thinking of Iran as backward theocracy where artistry is stifled. Clearly there’s more going on there than suspected. It is after all, Persia.

 

The Winchester Street Theater, our destination Saturday night, is an old converted Cabbagetown church.  Performing that night was the Toronto Dance Theater presenting a program titled “The New York Toronto Project". Two choreographers from New York City had come to Toronto to create pieces for the company. Seated in folding chairs on risers, we faced a large brightly lit unadorned space, no wings no backstage, all a clue as to what was to come. Both pieces turned out to be more theater than dance, performed without music, without lighting, without costuming other than eccentric street clothes, without any real continuity. High marks to the performers who displayed real athleticism in very strenuous parts that must have been hard to learn without any musical clues. Otherwise not our cup of tea. We did our part for the art.

 

One more default. Our choice for late night dinning in Toronto has for decades been Le Select Bistro going back the days when it was located on Queen St in a tiny space where because the tables were so small and crowded together the bread baskets hung from the ceiling above them. Now there’s a much larger new location on a quiet stretch of Wellington Street. We arrived a little past ten and were seated immediately in a comfy booth in the bar area, just what we prefer. The subtlety lit room was warm, comfy and welcoming, loud but not too loud, just enough to know that we were in convivial surroundings. Another default is the whitefish terrine. Could it possibly be as good as remembered? No, it was better. The special was short rib “braised for three days,” advised the waiter. I consider myself a leading expert on ribs; show me something new and different.  And they did. And it was delicious.

Toronto, how we’ve seen it grow and change over the years. We resolved not to be away so long again.

 

Footnote: There ought to be some way of warning pedestrians in Toronto that I’m in town. They step off the curb confident that their fellow Canadians will be looking out for and defer to them. They don’t even look up. If they did they could tell by my license plate that I’m from New York where we consider pedestrians prey. I’m the one behind the wheel of a ton of steel and where I come from that means I rule. I haven’t run any of them down. Yet.

SCAMA-RAMA LAMA DING DONG

“If it seems too good to be true it probably is.”

I knew that but I was loath to interrupt. The speaker was Maryanne from the New York State Attorney General’s Office of Consumer Fraud. She was a chatty Cathy and she seemed happy to have someone to talk to. I was content to listen.

My path to Maryanne began a few weeks earlier. Shelley’s beloved ’99 Cougar, after many years of exemplary service, finally bit the dust. We junked it for $100. We were left with only memories and four Blizzak snow tires mounted on steel wheels stored in our garage. I decided to try and sell them. I placed an ad on Craig’s list and waited for the offers to come pouring in.

I did get a coupla inquiries regarding the size of the tires, something I’d failed to include in the ad. Alas, no one wanted the size I had to offer. And then there was this, let’s politely call it “strange”, response:               

Hello, i will like to know if you still have this item for sale,  I will be at work till 10pm today... What area are you close to? or will be willing to meet? Cos i will like to buy it today or tommorow and pay you off but am going to church on Sunday..... 

Clearly an English as a second language correspondent. But this is Buffalo, a community of immigrants, and it wasn’t difficult to imagine a recently arrived Somalian, forewarned about ferocious winters, anxious to get his or her car ready.

I gave out my address. This response followed:

Thanks for returning my message...I'm Currently in Columbus am okay with the cost of the price, i will like to overnight the payment out to you asap, i will be paying with bank CASHIER CHECK/MONEY ORDER and I will wait for the PAYMENT  to clear before arranging for the pick up..i will also add $50 for keeping the item for me. I will be glad to have your  (i.e full name, mailing address, phone number and last asking price ) so payment can be mailed out immediately. I will also make arrangement for pick-up which will be after you must have received and cashed the payment.

 

Now it had gone beyond weird. Who is so desperate for used snow tires? And hey, wait a minute, this inquiry hadn’t even asked about the tire size. I could only conclude that I was being led on here. I was curious to see where this was all going and I couldn’t see how I could be hurt by going along. I replied, “OK”

 

                                             THE STING!

Here it is:

Am so happy to provide you the tracking number of the payment that was sent to you 1Z W0X 227 44 4160 8205 via www.ups.com,And the payment is about to deliver to you. All i want
you to do as soon as you get the payment is to get the rest of the funds sent to my shipper as soon as possible because the shipper are ready to come for the pick up tomorrow because i want the whole transaction done today before this weekend. So all i want you to do now
is just to get the rest funds wired via western union money transfer after you have deducted your item fund with $50 for running around more-so don't forget to deducted the western union charges and get back to me with the details that you used to send the money as soon as you
get the money sent, so the shipping agent can come for the pick-up as soon as possible too. This is the shipper's info you are to send the rest funds to: Jimmy Han, Bakersfield, CA 93313
Do get it done in no time and get back to me as soon as possible...Thanks

That email arrived on Friday. Here’s what arrived by UPS Next Day Air on Saturday:  

$1700!!! I gotta admit there was a brief moment when I felt way ahead of the game. But no. The scam was now revealed. So I decided to try and turn the tables. The return address on the envelope was a J P Morgan Chase branch in Ohio. I called them Monday morning asking them to authenticate the check. They couldn’t identify the account and passed me on to consumer service. They forwarded my call to their fraud department who advised me that the account against which this check was drawn was “compromised”. Sure enough, no payday for me.

Between the email telling me where to send my money and the UPS envelope in which the check arrived (surely there are surveillance cameras where it was posted) is sufficient evidence for the authorities to track down the miscreants. That’s how I ended up talking with cheery but not all that interested Maryanne.

“It’s a scam,” she said rattling off a catalog of similar such. “We haven’t the resources to chase them all. The best we can do is warn people…. If it seems too good to be true it probably is.”

 

 

 

 

Veterans Invade South Carolina

I’m in Garden City Beach, South Carolina, just down the coast from Myrtle Beach ensconced in a fabulous bayside villa. It’s late October. The season is over. The crowds are gone. The days are spectacularly beautiful; the moonlit evenings are as pleasant as can be.

I’m here to reunite once again with Bill, Joel and Frank. We four met over fifty years ago when we were all on active Army duty assigned to the same unit at Fort Benning, Georgia. And we all had the same fortune to be swept up in 1965 in what is known now as   “the buildup.” Twenty thousand of us in the newly redesignated 1^st Cavalry Airmobile loaded on ships, sailed through the Panama Cannel and disembarked in Viet Nam. And for the next year we worked together, eat together, slept together in support of that benighted incursion.

In the summer of 1966 our tour was over. Separately each of us headed home. In the first years afterwards Bill’s and my paths crossed a coupla times. And then we all went our, as it turned out, very separate ways.

Until one sunny Sunday afternoon when the phone rang. I answered.

Me: Hello

Texas Inflected Voice: Is this Jack Dumpert?

Me: Yes

TIV: Is this Jack Dumpert who went to Canisius College?

Me: Yes

TIV: Is this Jack Dumpert who was platoon leader of the second forward platoon?

Me: Who is this?

TIV: Who was platoon leader of the third forward platoon?

Me: Bill Hill?

TIV: Hey, buddy, how are you?

Bill was calling to arrange a reunion which subsequently took place in San Antonio. A second took place a few years later when we gathered at Bill’s home in Killeen Texas, traveled to Frank’s Carlsbad, New Mexico home and then on to El Paso, Texas to visit yet another of us. The trip to Joel’s home state, South Carolina, was our third reunion.

Upon arrival one of us gifted the others with shirts with our names embroidered on them. A First Calvary Patch was on one shoulder: a small American flag was velcroed to the other. And emblazoned on the back was the slogan “Viet Nam Veteran and damn proud of it.” Not exactly a sentiment I endorse. If I were forced to propose slogan it would be more like “Viet Nam Veteran, complicit in the death of thousands.”

When someone learns that you’re a veteran there’s a recent trend to thank you for your service. I’ve never been comfortable with that. I’d rather not get thanked for an episode in my life that, had I to do it over, I would have assiduously avoided. After some reflection I devised a reply to employ if it was ever said to me. Not that that’s likely. I don’t boast about it. Very few know about my time in the service and those that do have the courtesy not to bring it up. And besides there’s no way anyone could look at me and know. Unless I was somehow advertising it.

The next morning we all went out to breakfast. The uniform of the day was, of course, the shirt. A proponent of going along to get along, I pulled mine on.

While we were dining another patron came over to our table.

“Thank you for your service,” he said.

I was prepared for this.

“You’re welcome,” I replied, “but it was fucked up.”

If there were surveillance cameras in the restaurant they would have recorded the look of shock and consternation on his face. He stood seemingly stunned for a moment and then without another word he fled. Later when we asked for our check we were told that someone had picked up our tab. Likely, it was the very same dude.

Upon further reflection, I see now that my response was rude. That’s not something I aspire to. There’s no way I can excuse my behavior. At best I’m chagrined. Here I am a half century later still affected and not in any positive way. Clearly it won’t ever end.