Support the Fort Worth Opera

A little plug for our local Opera Company, one of the 14 oldest opera companies in the nation, and the oldest continuously performing opera company in Texas, the Fort Worth Opera. As of the end of the 2007 Season, the company has produced 219 main-stage operas.

I mention this because the FWO just received a plug in the July, 2009 magazine, Opera News with a headline article featuring our new Director, Darren Keith Woods.

It may surprise visitors to "Cowtown" but little old Fort Worth has possibly the premier piano competition in the world in the Van Cliburn*, one of the top ten music halls in the world**, and an opera company that is serious about bringing top-tier opera to Texas.

But they need your support.

It is a year away but next season features one of my favorites: Mozart's, Don Giovanni. I will be there, probably more than once.

http://www.fwopera.org/

* "The most prestigious classical piano contest in the world..." (Chicago Tribune)

** "Bass Performance Hall is one of those rare halls in which the music heard by the audience is the same as that heard by the performer. The clarity of sound heard throughout the entire range, in addition to the warm, welcoming environment, makes Bass Performance Hall one of the very best." --- Yo-Yo Ma

Speaking of aging . . .

If you watch TV (and I do) you will have noticed that drug companies promote the notion that by taking a pill we can have the vitality of a twenty year old.

The most recent televised target: low energy. I figure that's a pretty big audience of prospective buyers -- like everybody I know. This particular commercial named the cause of the lower energy , "Lower T." The suggestion was that even though I am 56, overweight, and under exercised, I should have more energy, and that if I were to take one of their pills I would have more energy.

Also recently, I have learned that if my eye's tear ducts aren't working I can take Resistrol, and that if my prostate is malfunctioning, and I am embarrassed by frequent men's room visits, I can take ... oh I forget ... and there is Lipitor for my high cholesterol, and I haven't even mention the dreaded V/pill and its all natural cousins.

I am certainly not suggesting that there are not wonder drugs. The lowly aspirin is one of them. Where we would we be without Penicillin? I do not object at all to those who do need to take one pill or the other. I am thankful that we have them. But I do tire of the drug commercials on television, their actor-doctors and nurses with feigned interest in the actor-patient's health, and all the silver-haired men and woman who suggest that life can be extended forever in full vitality by taking this pill -- the one they produced, of course.

I remember thinking how odd where the stories of Ponce de Leon searching for the Fountain of Youth, but we are not that much different.

Jack in the Box Ad (Hey, this is a food blog)

Concert in the Gardens, 2009.

I can't say that I have heard any of the bands playing this season at Concert in the Gardens, but it is an enjoyable venue to listen to music and to spend an evening. Those of you more accustomed to the chorale and classical music at "Concert" may be disappointed. The performers are a little different this season. It still looks good to me.

The location is the Botanic Garden and the shows begin at 8 p.m.

For detailed information on tickets go to:

http://www.fwsymphony.org/concerts/citg-tickets.asp

The Concert Schedule

Friday: Mingo Fishtrap
Saturday: Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin Brothers
Sunday: The Crawfish
June 12-13: Super Awesome Laser Adventure
June 14: Riders in the Sky
June 19: Cherryholmes
June 20: Jailhouse Rock: A Tribute to Elvis with Kraig Parker
June 21: Best of the Big Bands: Music of Glenn Miller and Friends
June 26: N’Awlins Gumbo Kings
June 27: Take It to the Limit: The Music of the Eagles
June 28: Stairway to Heaven: The Music of Led Zeppelin
July 2-4: Old-Fashioned Family Fireworks Picnic
July 5:1812 Overture

Tempus Fugit and the American Automobile.

1950 Pontiac

Things change.

We are watching the official demise of the Detroit-based auto industry. It has been about 100 years that automobiles and Detroit went together. No mas. There are causes for the failure, and like all failure, there will be a search for whose failures came first.

It is particularly troubling for those of us old enough to recall the golden years of the American auto, the cars of the 60's: GTO, Mustang, Corvette, the pick-up truck itself. Even if today's cars are more reliable and easier to use, they don't have the allure of those old ones.

Which is why many of us been in denial this last year. I hoped that someone, a modern day Lee Iococca, could save this dying beast, this whale washed ashore, gasping for air. But he can not. They will not. The present costs are too high: the pensions, wages, insurance and salaries are above the competitive scale. In economic terms, the market just won't bear it.

Cars will still be needed, they will be purchased, someone will be making them, and they will be made here as well as overseas. The jobs will be moved around, the wages and benefits will match the demand for the skill, and something good could come out of all of this. That is a difficult change. That is the sad reality for the thousands of workers in Detroit, and the auto dealers nationwide.

But this change carries a greater, more symbolic meaning and it is this: the auto industry is a symbol of the country. Its weakness reveals our weakness. An American currency default is as possible as a GM default, and in some ways is already occurring, and a nation with a weak currency and burdened with debt is a nation that will become a slave to the lender it needs.

Things do change -- but the laws, and consequences, of economics are as fixed as the laws of gravity. No matter who is President.