Another Week: Number 116

It’s that time of year when winter and spring are duking it out. Sunshine alternates with precipitation and the four winds each take their shot. Girl Scouts boldly tout their cookies from folding tables in front of supermarkets, screaming about Samoas over the whirling litter. Plastic grocery bags are lofted skyward to seek out the trees in which they’ll spend the summer.

Sunday was the beginning of Daylight Saving Time, which I like, but the TV weatherpeople really ought to settle down. Almost everyone carries a phone or a smartwatch that automatically adjusts to DST, so the chances of arriving an hour late for church are next to nil. Ditto with the neurological experts and their advice on coping with the lost hour of sleep. Has no one ever stayed up to finish watching a game or set an early alarm for an appointment? Yeah, you’ll yawn a little more.

On Monday, I applied Wet & Forget to the mossy north side of my house, and it worked well enough to clearly see which spots I missed on this first try. Tuesday, gathering brush in my backyard, the heat was even a little oppressive.

I saw my first robin of the season on Thursday, drinking from my birdbath like he was waiting for service. I also parked in “senior citizen parking” for the first time ever at the UPS Store.

Friday night into Saturday morning, my bedroom weather radio kept going off every few minutes to warn of severe storms that, happily, never materialized.

I walked 6.74 miles this week.

Guitarist Olly Pearson on Britain’s Got Talent

Early Wednesday morning I read a Guitar Player story about an 11-year-old guitarist who made an extremely favorable impression on Britain’s Got Talent.

The kid’s name is Olly Pearson, and he ripped through a medley of AC/DC, Van Halen, and Queen very nicely, especially considering his age.

The thing that really struck me, though, was how masterfully the show’s production milked the emotions — the nervous introduction, the adorable grandad, the innocent ambition, the won-over audience, the impressed judges, and the thunderous ovation.

This is not the sort of thing I typically watch — but I can see why so many people do. The storytelling is so slick and concentrated it’s irresistable.

“Stay off the news”

On Wednesday, I caught up with Melissa Villaseñor‘s latest Laughing with Myself episodes.

As the one about curly shoelaces unfolds, you can see optimism and depression arm-wrestling across her face.

Near the end, about ten minutes in, she advises, “Stay off the news. Stay off lookin’ at news. Uh-uh. Just … no. It’s too much. It’s too much. I actually have to— I can’t look at news. Especially when I have to do five shows, like last weekend. If I catch any wind of news, anything going on, it makes me so sad and frustrates me so much, and I don’t wanna bring that anger onstage.”

I don’t have any comedy shows to do, but I feel the same despondency. It made me quit my decade-long, ‘round-the-clock MSNBC habit cold turkey the day after the election. Visiting my mom recently,  I snarled when yet another hour of their neverending Trumpwatch kicked off on her TV.

So it’s reassuring to know that others are making similar adaptations — or to read a Psychology Today article about throttling down your news intake to avoid the paralysis of hopelessness.

These days, I watch an hour of Hallie Jackson NOW from 4 to 5 p.m. Central weekdays. It’s the best news digest on TV.

Wisconsin Supreme Court Debate

Wednesday night, the only debate in Wisconsin’s current Supreme Court race aired live on WISN 12.

Just like with the presidential election last November, this one has unleashed a mind-crushing load of TV commercials, most of them spotlighting pedophiles and perverts — as if our state Supreme Court’s main function is locking up criminals.

Much of this advertising is funded by Elon Musk.

The lone debate, however, was remarkable for its decorum.

Granted, WISN’s Matt Smith and Gerron Jordan were more like eager puppies than cool inquisitors, but it was a surprisingly substantial hour and Judge Susan Crawford prevailed.

It won’t make any difference. People don’t watch debates.

They do watch thousands and thousands of commercials about pedophiles, paid for by Elon Musk.

How to Talk to Anyone: 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships, by Leil Lowndes

During our 42 years together, I often left the socializing to Amy, who had a much better rapport with people than I ever have.

Working alone from home for the last three decades brings me into contact with clients now and then — but only briefly.

So, for a change of pace in my reading regimen, I searched for a popular book on the subject — and arrived at How to Talk to Anyone, by Leil Lowndes.

I often wish I could download such knowledge the way I download music — and just instantly have it at my disposal.

Unfortunately, though, you still have to read books, and that’s where this one began to present an obstacle. Ms. Lowndes follows a simple pattern over and over, 92 times, in presenting her material: She starts with a bare concept, uses an anecdote to elaborate on it, sprinkles in puns or other amusing turns of phrase, then reiterates it in a boxed summary – 92 times.

But just when I began to get frustrated with the monotony, I had a realization.

Some kinds of knowledge can be transmitted almost like a download. “Columbus sailed the ocean blue in fourteen hundred and ninety-two.” There — you’ve learned it, probably for life.

Other kinds of learning require lots of repetition — as you know if you’ve ever tried to learn a language or an instrument, or train a dog.

What Leil Lowndes is trying to impart here is a mindset. Yes, she’s a New Yorker originally from Washington D.C. who may attend more cocktail parties than you or I, but that’s not important. Neither is memorizing every detail of her anecdotal examples, because you are unlikely to encounter the exact same people and circumstances.

The important thing is to catch on to the mindset she’s describing here — and midway through the book, that finally got through to me.

Two things that remained puzzling, however, were how to pronounce Lowndes’ last name, and what exactly she meant by “wrists and palms up,” since there are no illustrations. I found some help with the second question on YouTube.

Perhaps someday soon, I’ll encounter people and try talking to them.

 Jesus Christ Superstar (1973)

The current view from my living room is at the top of this page — and somehow, seeing guys in hard hats on scaffolding during the season of Lent made me suspect Jesus might appear next and start singing.

Since childhood, Eastertime has been an exciting season for me. Sure, there’s the warming weather and the resurrected foliage — but there’s also the execution and miraculous recovery of the Son of God on a holiday named after Ēostre, the Germanic goddess of spring, the Easter Bunny (made of either hollow or solid chocolate, depending on your wallet) who brings Easter eggs for some reason, and the wearing of Easter bonnets and new clothes.

Then, recognizing the Last Supper as a Passover Seder, add to this the lamb’s blood and the death of every Egyptian’s firstborn son, and matzah that had no time to rise, and the hiding of the afikoman. and the four questions, and the four glasses of wine.

It’s an invigorating mix of grim death and joyous redemption and haphazard​ details that raises so many questions.

Tim Rice had a lot of questions back in 1969 when he started writing Jesus Christ Superstar, which was released as an album in 1970, staged on Broadway in 1971, and released as a movie in 1973.

I’ve seen this movie at least a dozen times, and I watched it again Saturday night with my mom, who has seen it once or twice herself.

Some of Andrew Lloyd Webber‘s musical hooks will always get me. “Heaven on Their Minds” is a grabber. “Gethsemane (I Only Want to Say)” is pretty moving.

Director Norman Jewison‘s staging, amid the ruins and caves and olive groves of Israel and Palestine, on scaffolding and gravel, is pretty brilliant.

The cast is strong. Ted Neeley makes a decent blonde and blue-eyed Jesus (although my mom felt he sang “like a girl” at times). Yvonne Elliman is tender and confused as Mary Magdeline, Carl Anderson is torn and conflicted as Judas, Barry Dennen is anguished and perplexed as Pilate.

Rice’s lyrics are sometimes fine, sometimes just dumb.

Through all the characters, Rice voices his bewilderment with the Jesus story. Did Jesus think he was God? Did he recognize that he was headed for execution? Was there some benefit to his death? Couldn’t he have backed off and stayed alive?

Jesus Christ Superstar has aged over 55 years, but just like chocolate eggs, traditions can be comforting even if they don’t stand up to scrutiny.