Day One on the Island

It might have been more honest to title this blog post “Getting to the Island” since that’s how I spent most of the day. I was chosen last October to be on an accreditation site visit team to the College of Micronesia-FSM, which is located on a small, rather isolated island in the Pacific, somewhat closer to Australia and the Philippines than to the United States. Getting there takes some time, and there’s only one major airline that goes there, United. Nine members of the team were at the airport in Honolulu for a 7:25 a.m. departure, and everyone was sleepy. I’d managed to get some sleep the previous night in the hotel, but nothing could prepare me for the next ten hours on a plane. I watched Star Wars, Episode VII: The Force Awakens on the monitor on the back of the seat in front of me. I’d already seen it in theaters, of course, but the choices were somewhat limited. I’d also already seen Creed, the three short films from the Tribeca Film Festival didn’t take very much time, I had no interest at all in seeing Alvin and the Chipmunks: Road Chip (or whatever the actual title is), and most of the rest were either Japanese or Korean or Hong Kong films with subtitles and I wasn’t in the mood to read. I tried watching The Internship (the one with Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson), but each time the plane landed, all of the movies would start over from the beginning and I never got past the scene with the Quidditch match. The first stop was the atoll of Majora, which seems to have a landing strip and little else. It’s the capital of the Marshall Islands, but there doesn’t seem to be much there to attract visitors. The airport was tiny, and the snack bar offered liquor from bottles that were already open and lined up like a low-rent bar shelf. It was the only one of the islands where we were allowed to depart the plane while the security check took place. We were joined by new people from Majora, and the plane was now fuller.

 

Next the plane landed at Kwajalein, another atoll. We weren’t allowed to get off the plane while the security check was underway. Apparently, the landing strip at Kwajalein is primarily used by the adjacent U.S. military base, and you’re not even allowed to take pictures of the atoll through the windows of the plane. I’m not certain that everyone complied with these restrictions, though, but since I couldn’t see anything from my seat, I was perfectly willing to let the opportunity pass. Enough people did get off the plane to allow some folks to move around a bit. I was not one of them, unfortunately. Our section of the plane was full for the entire trip. We reached the first of the islands in the Federated States of Micronesia, Kosrae, and encountered a quick rainstorm. Once again, we were asked to stay on the plane during the security check since we wouldn’t be able to do much during the 40 minutes or so that we would be on the ground. A tenth member of the team (who had been conducting a site visit on the campus there) joined us on the plane, as did a government official who seemed to know everyone and vice versa. He shook hands with almost everyone as he walked down the center of the plane. When we landed in Pohnpei, our final stop, we were greeted by the president and one of the vice presidents of the college we will be evaluating this week, and we received laurels of flowers to wear on our heads. It’s the equivalent to the lei in Hawaii, I suppose. The laurels were beautiful, quite colorful. I also received the first stamp in my passport during the customs process. You have to fill out forms that you aren’t bringing in anything like drugs or firearms or food to the country, so I was questioned about the snack bars in my backpack. Actually, I wasn’t really asked about the snack bars. I was really asked if I brought any other food into the country. I hadn’t, naturally, so I was allowed to enter the Federated States of Micronesia without further incident.

We drove through the countryside to our hotel, the Cliff Rainbow Hotel, and checked in. The college president and vice president offered to take us on a quick tour, and six of us took them up on the offer. As we drove through the villages and neighborhoods, the president (in whose car three of use rode) pointed out some restaurants we might want to try and some other areas of local interest. We got to see the college’s renovated track, its tennis courts, and the swimming pool, all of which had been used in the Micro Games of 2014, a sort of mini-Olympics for the islands. I immediately began thinking of the similarities between Pohnpei and my home state of Mississippi. There’s incredible poverty here too, and there are homes that look like they’ve been assembled from whatever material was available. Dogs seem to be everywhere, none of them on leashes, and people walk down roads that have no sidewalks. And the humidity was strength-sapping. It truly is like being back in the country of my youth.

 

By this point, I’d only had breakfast on the plane, a couple of in-flight drinks, one packet of almonds, and two of the snack bars I’d picked up in Honolulu. I was not the only one who was hungry, so we agreed to meet for dinner at the restaurant in the hotel. It’s a nice place to eat. I had a fish sandwich, which was pretty tasty, but it took us quite a while to get our food. Service is not particularly tourist-oriented here on the island, and you have to be very patient waiting for your food. Not everyone got served at the same time. In fact, the first group had already finished eating by the time the last two people got their food. It’s no matter, though, when you’re surrounded by people who are good conversationalists and with whom you have some common backgrounds in community college education. The dinner was good, but the plane trip had exhausted me. I guess it was my first real case of jet lag. I went upstairs to my room, not quite the lush accommodations of Hawaii but still quite serviceable as far as hotel rooms go, and unpacked everything in anticipation of needing to find stuff quickly the next morning. I turned on the television, but the service is horrible here and only CNN and ESPN are actually being broadcast “live.” The rest of the few available channels (fewer than ten) are mostly repackaged shows from American television. “Repackaged” means, of course, “reruns.” There’s also a delay in the audio signal, so the image and the sound are not quite in sync with each other. I read a few chapters in Rob Sheffield’s autobiographical book about his relationships and karaoke—it’s far more interesting than my description would suggest—and then fell asleep. It had been a long day, so even through it was only about 9 p.m., I was too exhausted to last any longer.  

Motown 25: Thirty Years Later

Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, and Forever first aired back in 1983, and it was an event that almost everyone I knew watched. We had fewer options for television viewing then, of course, and a special featuring the greatest stars of Motown was too exciting to miss. The show provided an overview of the history of the famous recording company based in Detroit and demonstrated just how deep a cultural impact the acts from the label’s first twenty-five years had. It was a nice evening of nostalgia for those of us who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s, in particular.

Recently, the special was rebroadcast—well, most of it anyway—on public television as part of a fundraising drive. I decided to revisit the program thirty-two years after that initial showing to see how well my memory of it has held up. Of course, it’s most famous for introducing the “moonwalk” to viewers when Michael Jackson wowed the crowd during his performance of “Billie Jean” from his then-new Thriller album. Oddly enough, that moment wasn’t even the best of the night from my perspective of more than three decades later.

·         Dick Clark showed up to talk about how black musicians had a lot of obstacles to overcome (i.e., racism, a word he didn’t or wouldn’t use) in order to become successful. For example, many stores that catered primarily to white customers wouldn’t sell albums that had black faces on them, leading to such atrocities as the album cover of This Old Heart of Mine by the Isley Brothers having a photograph of two white people canoodling on a beach. Crazy. (Clark didn’t mention but the clips revealed that his show American Bandstand made a big difference too. He showcased a lot of performers from Motown over the years and helped to make the label one that young people sought out.)

·         Dr. Johnny Fever (Howard Hesseman) and Venus Flytrap (Tim Reid) from TV’s WKRP in Cincinnati introduced a segment whose sole purpose seemed to be to give short shrift to some of the greatest early Motown artists. The broadcast only featured snippets of “Heat Wave” by Martha Reeves, “My Guy” by Mary Wells, and “Shot Gun” by Junior Walker. Almost all of those songs and singers made history, but they were definitely slighted by the producers of the show. I hope that they were allowed to perform the entire songs at the actual event, but for the sake of time, their moments were just reduced to thirty second clips. (By the way, WKRP in Cincinnati had ended more than a year before the Motown special was broadcast. Why were these two characters brought back for this event?)

·         After some clips of the kinds of dance moves for which Motown groups were noted—such as the Pips backing up Gladys Knight—the Temptations and the Four Tops gave a master class in synchronized moves. The sing-off between these two groups was one of the highlights that I recalled with pretty good accuracy. They had a lot of great songs, and they could still sing them beautifully.

·         Marvin Gaye was so sly and just so sexy. He talked to the audience about how music intertwines with history before launching into “What’s Going On.” It was a brilliant transition, and he performed the song with just a piano for accompaniment. A breathtaking moment.

·         The medley of songs by the Jackson 5 brought a smile to my face. They made such good music together, and the group was never quite the same after Jermaine left. He was back here and youngest brother Randy (Jermaine’s replacement) also joined in, making it the Jackson 6, I suppose. Randy, by the way, was very hot. He was wearing a torn shirt that left his nipple exposed many years before sister Janet’s Super Bowl fiasco. (Yet no one made a fuss about Randy’s nipple. Odd, isn’t it?) Another brother had on a sparkly, see-through shirt that was far too covered up by a jacket, but his body just couldn’t quite compare to Randy’s. No, I don’t recall that brother’s name. I could never keep all of the Jackson brothers’ names clear once I got past Michael and Jermaine (and, obviously, Randy).

·         Michael Jackson famously wanted to sing his new song “Billie Jean,” not just the old stuff with his brothers. He wanted to sell some records on his current label and apparently only agreed to appear if he could do his latest hit. During what is an obviously lip-synched performance, he moonwalks twice, but it’s only for a couple of seconds each time, not the lengthy moonwalk across the entire stage that I thought I saw originally. In retrospect, it’s not quite as astonishing an event as we might think, but it certainly signaled a change in the way that Jackson would be respected as an artist. The audience in the theater certainly enjoyed his performance; it’s one of the few ovations of the night.

·         I personally enjoyed the duet of Smokey Robinson and Linda Ronstadt on “Ooh Baby Baby” and “Tracks of My Tears.” Robinson reunited with the original Miracles early in the show, but hearing the blending of his and Ronstadt’s voices on these two classics was amazing. How bittersweet to watch this performance now that Ronstadt has lost the ability to sing due to Parkinson’s.

·         I love Diana Ross, and one of the highlights of my life in recent years was getting to see her perform live at the Hollywood Bowl. However, she was and is quite the diva. She got to anchor the final segment of the show. She was, of course, one of the members of one of the biggest groups in popular music history, the Supremes, later known as Diana Ross and the Supremes (there’s a sign of a growing ego). She showed up at the Motown 25 spectacular on her own first, though. She got to sing one of her solo hits before bringing out fellow former Supremes Mary Wilson and Cindy Birdsong to join her on “Someday We’ll Be Together.” She, however, remained the center of attention, even taking a few steps to block Wilson from the camera at one point before relinquishing lead vocals to her one-time rival. Birdsong, wisely, stayed out of the way of both Ross and Wilson.

·         Ross brought out everyone for the final moments of the special. It’s touching to see her reunited with Richard Pryor, her costar from Lady Sings the Blues. She’s also there with Michael and the rest of the Jackson 5, whom she “introduced” on their first recordings. She coaxed label founder Berry Gordy to join everyone on stage (although Mary Wilson had technically beaten her to it) even though she and most of the Jacksons and Gaye and a lot of the other acts had left the label to make more money. She seemed to think that she got to bring the Motown “family” together. Who else could have made such a reunion possible?

·         El DeBarge was apparently a much bigger deal than I remembered. He gets a prime spot of real estate during the closing number. DeBarge, his family’s namesake band, was popular for less than a decade, but he’s given more exposure than many of the greatest artists in the history of music.

I think quite a lot was cut in order to have enough time for all of the pledge drive nonsense. One of the prizes for pledging was the full version with additional bonus material. A lot of acts from the early years were not invited, and only selected artists were given time to perform. It’s a very hit-and-miss evening, to be honest, but thankfully, some of the reunions (the Jackson brothers, the Supremes) were captured on film since this would mark the last time they would, actually, be together.

Taking Stock: 2015

Favorite Film: I saw thirty-four feature length films and nine short films in the theater. Add another fourteen films on DVD, thanks mostly to my teaching an Introduction to Film Studies class in the fall, and you’ve got a pretty good year at the movies. I did, of course, watch dozens more on TV and streaming, far more than I’ve had a chance to watch in recent years. Of the theatrical films I watched, my favorite was The Martian, featuring a very loose, often quite funny Matt Damon as an astronaut stranded on the Red Planet. It’s Ridley Scott’s most accomplished and entertaining film in years, and watching Damon filming himself trying to survive alone was much more intriguing that a simple plot summary might suggest. It also features the best-ever use of David Bowie’s “Starman” in a movie.

Favorite Film (Runner-Up): Amy, the documentary chronicling the short life and career of British singer Amy Winehouse, is one of the best nonfiction films of the past decade. Notwithstanding the opportunity to witness her creating some of her most indelible songs, what I most admired about the film was how carefully it presented the events leading up to her premature death. Amy should be one of the finalists for the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature, and it should be a strong contender for the top honor. This is a documentary that is more riveting that the vast majority of fiction films out there.

Favorite Male Film Performance: Michael B. Jordan takes on the title role in Creed with such a sense of star power that he tends to eclipse Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky Balboa in every scene that they share. Jordan plays the illegitimate son of Rocky’s famous first opponent, and he provides as much magnetism as Carl Weathers did in the original 1976 film. Hopefully, the franchise will now follow Jordan’s character, and we will have the opportunity to see this young actor continue to develop what will undoubtedly become an iconic role while continuing to headline the kinds of indie films for which he is also known.

Favorite Film Performance (Runners-Up): Chris Pratt in Jurassic World and Paul Rudd in Ant-Man rewrote the rules for being the kind of male lead that action-adventure/superhero movies should have. Pratt, already a star thanks to Guardians of the Galaxy from 2014, interjected a real sense of energy and humor into his role as dinosaur wrangler in the blockbuster sequel; it is no wonder that Bryce Dallas Howard’s ice princess role (and how annoying was it to have the female lead so stereotypically written) falls for him. Didn’t we all? And Rudd, who has always been one of my favorite actors, took on an unconventional role for himself and used his considerable charm to make a more complex, interesting superhero than most of the rest of the Marvel universe.

Favorite Female Film Performance: Charlize Theron as Imperator Furiosa in Mad Max: Fury Road takes a movie that is supposed to be centered around Tom Hardy’s title character and forces us to watch her instead (and miss her whenever she’s not on screen). It’s no small feat to steal a movie from Hardy, and the entire movie is a non-stop rush of adrenaline, so for Theron’s character to steal a group of enslaved women in order to rescue them from a terrible future and find her homeland after years of captivity. The Mad Max movies have a history of male-centeredness, but the plot to Mad Max: Fury Road turns that paradigm on its head. Theron, who has been underutilized in movies since her Oscar win for Monster, frankly, was the most compelling presence on screen—male or female—for me this past year.

Favorite Female Performance (Runner-Up): She has a relatively small part and only a few key scenes, but Phylicia Rashad really makes the most of them in Creed. As Mary Anne Creed, the wife of Apollo Creed, she has to navigate the difficult terrain of adopting his illegitimate child and trying to keep him from going into his father’s profession. She fails at that, of course, but the scenes where she watches her adopted son fight for the championship adds to the excitement of that sequence. Rashad has not been getting much attention from the awards groups, but her performance is one of those that makes one acknowledge what a true “supporting” performance is.

Favorite Book of Poetry: I only managed to read twenty-one books this past year, far fewer than in years past. To be honest, some of them were quite long and took a great deal of time to read. For example, I tackled a collection of Wallace Stevens poetry for the first time since graduate school, and given the complexity of his writing and the esoteric nature of his subject matter, I just couldn’t read it quickly. I did manage to reread one favorite book of poetry, Why God Permits Evil by Miller Williams. Williams died earlier this year, and his passing sent me to Amazon to find copies of his books of poetry. Why God Permits Evil was a book that I read for the first time back at Mississippi State as part of a Contemporary Literature class, and I had fond memories of it. Unfortunately, I seem to have lost it over the years with all of the moves to different residences, so I had to buy a new copy. It was definitely worth it, and I intend to be more careful in holding on to this copy.

Favorite Fiction Book: The Days of Anna Madrigal is a fitting finale to Armistead Maupin Tales of the City series (if it is, indeed, the last chapter). I kept reading with the expectation that the beloved transgender character of Anna Madrigal would die, and the rest of the residents and former residents of Barbary Lane would grapple with the loss. What I got instead was an uplifting, life-affirming story that delves into people’s pasts and provides some key historical contexts for many of the characters I have been following since I read my first Tales of the City book in 1990. I’ve never been to Burning Man, and to be honest, after reading this book, I’m not really inspired to go, but the description of it is certainly detailed with a great sense of affection.

Favorite Non-Fiction Book: The Holy or the Broken: Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley & the Unlikely Ascent of “Hallelujah” by Alan Light traces the development of the famous song from its writing through various significant interpretations of it over the years. Light does fine work examining and analyzing the ways that the song has been rewritten and deconstructed, and his discussion of the ways that Cohen, Buckley, Rufus Wainwright, k.d. lang, and a host of other people have changed the lyrics to suit their style is enlightening. I didn’t expect a book about just one song, no matter how famous, to be this interesting.

Favorite Non-Fiction Book (Runners-Up): I read two biographies this past year by noted gay men who were born in the South: Mama’s Boy, Preacher’s Son by Kevin Jennings and Mississippi Sissy by Kevin Sessums. Both reminded me why I was so adamant about leaving the South more than twenty-five years ago and why I determined that I would overcome my background and become a success. Jennings and Sessums have accomplished a great deal in the fields of education and journalism, respectively, and their stories will, I hope, serve as inspiration for future generations of young gay people, perhaps most especially those still living in the South.

Favorite Theatrical Event of the Year: I attended five theatrical productions this past year, three of them at my college and the other two by professional companies. The one that I enjoyed the most was a revitalized Twelfth Night that featured acrobats and a fantastic young singer in the role of Feste, the clown. I’ll admit that our college’s Theatre Arts Department does fine work, and my friends and I really enjoyed Clybourne Park and The Drowsy Chaperone too.

Favorite Event of the Year: This is a tough choice for 2015 because I had opportunities to see some great musical talents. Bette Midler put on the most fantastic show at the Honda Center in Anaheim. She sang most of her great hits and chose some songs like Leonard Cohen’s “Everybody Knows” to turn into new classics. Of course, she also understands what a sense of showmanship entails, and her backup singers were quite game for the fun. I’ve long been a fan of Midler’s and have owned almost every album she’s released, but this was the first time I had a chance to see her perform live. I went to the show with several friends, and getting to share the experience only heightened our enjoyment.

Favorite Event of the Year (Runners-Up): A couple of other events deserve special mention. The Boyfriend and I got to see Heart at the Hollywood Bowl in August after my first day back at school, and it was such a pleasure to sing along with Ann and Nancy Wilson’s songs from throughout their long career. They even did a couple of Led Zepplin songs for good measure, and they totally rocked the Bowl. And we finally got to see Culture Club at the Greek Theatre (with Boy George in fine voice), a group the Boyfriend only knows from their later years and Boy George’s solo career. A particular highlight of that evening was getting to see Caitlyn Jenner introduce the band; she walked out without any announcement, and it only took the crowd a few seconds to recognize her and go completely crazy. Boy George has grown fond of outrageous hats in recent years, so each reappearance on stage was cause for another round of aahs.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

The Princess next door wakes up at 8 a.m. You know this because you are awakened by his typical annoying habit of playing his dreary music loudly enough for him to hear it over the shower—and for you to hear it clearly as well. He eventually leaves for work, but when he returns in the evening, he turns on the television in his bedroom, and it sounds like he’s listening to an old industrial film punctuated at times by loud car crashes.

Wednesday, December 23, 2015

The Princess finally goes to sleep at about 2 a.m., or at least, the noise from next door quietens down at around 2 a.m. Oddly enough, he doesn’t play music in the morning (or, perhaps, he doesn’t take a shower that day). You and The Boyfriend go to a movie, do a little shopping, have a nice dinner, and return home to find a party next door in full swing. The noise level isn’t as loud as parties in the past have sometimes had, but other neighbors still complain because by midnight it’s still going on. Exhausted, you fall asleep with the thumping of the usual bad music associated with The Princess’ parties.

Thursday, December 34, to Wednesday, December 30, 2015

No noises from next door. The Princess and, apparently, Bigfoot, his roommate, are gone for the Christmas holidays. You are able to wake up when you please. You are able to go to sleep when you please. No loud music. No television. Nothing but the lovely peace and quiet you’ve come to associated with the Princess’ holiday visits to his trashy family in Texas. I have no idea where Bigfoot goes, but you have to assume it’s somewhere in the Pacific Northwest.

Thursday, December 31, 2015

As you’re getting ready to go to a New Year’s Eve party at a friend’s home, you hear the not-so-faint sounds of what seems to be an old-time industrial film punctuated by car crashes. The joy of the holidays has obviously ended. The Princess has returned, and he’s back to his old ways.

Friday, January 1, 2016

You get home at about 1:30 a.m. You’ve eaten well and had a few celebratory drinks, you’ve watched the ball drop in Times Square (on television, of course), and you’ve kissed and hugged everyone and wished them “Happy New Year.” You’re tired and want to sleep. You go to brush your teeth and hear what sounds like the same stupid movie that was playing in the morning. You wonder if there’s some long industrial film on an endless loop next door. You grit your teeth and think that at least he’ll have to go back to work on Monday, giving you a few hours during the day without his racket. 

It's All in the Details

I was cleaning out my office at the end of the fall semester and came across a stack of final essays from my Development Writing students from a couple of years ago. We're obligated to keep graded work for at least one year after the end of a term just in case a student wants to come by and pick up work or in case there's a grade appeal and you need to supply additional evidence that the student didn't initially have access to. 

Developmental Writing essays are typically short, so I took a few minutes to read through them again before putting them in the recycling bin. The assignment was a simple one: the student had to evaluate a product or a place or some example of entertainment (a TV show, a movie, a song, etc.). As I told them on the assignment sheet, the key would be the details that they gave to support their assertions about the quality of what they chose to evaluate. Below are some examples of the details that they gave.

• "I have had many great moments there." (None of those great moments were described or mentioned.

• "My overall evaluation of this place is that it is a good park that has many cool features." (None of the park's particular features were listed or included.)

• "X is a medium sized restaurant where there are plenty of tables inside and a couple of tables outside for you to sit and eat. When you go inside they greet you by saying 'Welcome to X.' Once you order your sandwich you can see how they make it. You don’t have to get up and get your sandwich they will bring it to you." (I'm not sure that any of this is particularly unique in restaurants. Aren't these details common to lots of different restaurants?)

• "It’s mostly good." (How can I possibly not know what is meant by this assessment? It just says it all, doesn't it?)

• "There is mostly bad things about X but they are small things." (Those small things are never mentioned, just alluded to here. The writer only stuck to the good things.)

• "It’s mostly good, but there’s bad." (I did tell them that nothing is all good or all bad, and I suggested that they try to look at both the positive and the negative. I guess the student gave me what I asked for.)

• "They also have a numerous amount of drinks such as root beer, strawberry lemonade, ginger ale and peach tea just to name a few, to spice things up for the grown and sexy they have a fully equipped bar with a selection of hundreds of alcoholic beverages to choose from." (I'm dying to know what it means to be both "grown and sexy." I think I've been one or the other at times, but never both at once, so I don't think I can order from the bar in this place.)

One of the traits of developing writers that I most admire is their naivete at how others don't know what's inside their heads. They assume that most people have very similar experiences or backgrounds, so they don't explain what they think should be apparent to everyone else. It's one of the toughest jobs as a writing teacher to convince students that I and other readers don't actually know what they were thinking when they wrote down something, that I really do need more information, more details in order to understand.

It's one of the highlights for me as a teacher when students grow and improve in their use of details and examples, when they fully develop their ideas because they are truly considering that someone else is going to read what they've written. Don't take my sharing of these examples as anything more than my recognition that sometimes I do fail at achieving this goal. 

Random Thoughts on the 2015 Kennedy Center Honors

One of the best awards shows of the year arrived between Christmas and New Year’s Eve this year: the annual Kennedy Center Honors. This is a lifetime achievement award, granted to people who have made longstanding and notable achievements in music of every imaginable genre, television, movies, theater, dance, anything having to do with entertainment. If you’re not familiar with any of a particular year’s honorees, it’s a good idea to acquaint yourself with their accomplishments. This year’s honorees were Rita Moreno, George Lucas, Cicely Tyson, Seiji Ozawa, and Carole King. You should know all of them already. If you don’t, do some homework.

As always during this annual ceremony, I have random thoughts about the recipients, the presenters, the audience, any number of things.

·         I loved that they showed a clip from The Ritz as part of the tribute to Rita Moreno. Moreno starred in both the Broadway and film versions of this comedy set in a gay bathhouse. Her character, Googie Gomez, was allegedly based on outrageous performers like Bette Midler, who first came to fame at the Continental Baths in New York. Moreno won the Tony Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Play in 1975 and used part of her speech to claim that she was the leading lady of the play, which was technically true even if she was more comic relief than central to the narrative. The next year the supporting categories were permanently renamed “Featured Actor/Actress” to reflect more accurately the importance that some characters and performances can have.

·         Moreno is one of the more famous EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony) winners, and the tribute pointed this out by emphasizing each of those wins. There is an asterisk to her EGOT, of course, since she won the Grammy with a whole bunch of other people for the cast show album of The Electric Company. Still, as she herself has been fond of reminding people, she does have them all—and deservedly so.

·         Was it meant to be a joke that for the tribute to George Lucas that Carrie Fisher appeared as a holographic image (as she did in the first Star Wars movie) and that James Earl Jones only provided his voice to the tribute package? Jones never appears in the Star Wars films either; it’s only his voice you hear as Darth Vader. Was that intentional or just the result of difficulties in getting the stars to the ceremony?

·         Does Steven Spielberg not have enough money to have his tuxedo pants tailored? They were way, way too long, and I had trouble concentrating upon what he was saying about his friend George Lucas because I kept trying to determine how many extra yards of fabric were swirling around his lower legs.

·         I had no idea that Cicely Tyson was once married to Miles Davis. That is such an interesting pairing of people. The mind reels at what dinner at the Davis-Tyson house was like.

·         I was 11 years old when The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman was first on TV, and I remember it well, especially the scene involving the Whites Only water fountain. It was a transformative experience watching Tyson in that role, the first of many performances of hers that I have admired.

·         CeCe Winans will take you to church even if you’re not particularly fond of churchgoing. Her performance of “Blessed Assurance” with the choir from the Cicely Tyson Community School for Performing and Fine Arts brought tears to the eyes of many people in the audience—including Usher. Tyson herself was singing along with a great deal of joy. She’s such an amazing presence and still acting at age 90!

·         Apparently, the Eagles were also chosen to be honored this year, but they had to postpone their appearance until 2016 due to Glenn Frey being ill. One of the biggest laughs of the night was when host Stephen Colbert said that waiting a year would allow the band to “accept the honor the way they made their music—together…and shirtless.” I’m looking forward to next year’s ceremony already although I’m not certain any of the members need to go shirtless.

·         I vow each year after watching the tribute to a classical music performer that I will learn more about this genre. This year the honoree was conductor Seiji Ozawa, and he was feted by such greats as Itzak Perlman, John Williams, and Yo-Yo Ma. I still don’t know very much about classical music, though, and I’m not sure I should keep making a promise that I’m very unlikely to keep.

·         The highlight of the evening was undoubtedly to the tribute to singer-songrwriter Carole King, much of it framed by the cast of Beautiful, the Broadway show based on King’s life. What impressed me most was the genuine sense of excitement and surprise King showed each time another famous performer showed up to sing one of her famous songs: James Taylor, Sara Bareilles, Aretha Franklin. It’s quite a canon of musical gems.

·         Speaking of Franklin, as you would expect, she shut down the whole evening with her rendition of “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.” She took command of the stage from the moment she walked out wearing a huge fur coat and carrying her purse. I don’t know why she needed to keep her purse with her, but she plopped it on top of the piano and began playing and singing. She was already enchanting the audience when she stood up, walked to center stage, and took off that fur, dropping it to the stage so that she could reach notes even higher than before. By that point, everyone was standing and cheering. Aretha could take CeCe Winans to church.

One of the most interesting things about the Kennedy Center Honors show is that the recipients don’t speak or perform during the evening; they just get to sit and relax and enjoy others paying homage to them and to their accomplishments. They are spectators just the way that we at home are. I don’t think I could enjoy the event as much as Carole King obviously did or have the same exuberance as Cicely Tyson, but it’s a special couple of hours each year that I don’t miss.

Death by Smoothie

The Boyfriend tried to kill me with a smoothie a few weeks ago.

I had been doing laundry downstairs in our apartment complex, my usual weekly ritual on Friday afternoon. I had come back upstairs to our apartment after transferring all of the clothes from the washers to the dryers because I was thirsty. There’s no ventilation in the basement laundry room other than a fan installed in a half-opened “window,” so it’s very easy to get hot and thirsty while down there for any extended length of time.

The Boyfriend, seeing that I was parched, offered to pour me a smoothie while I put away the laundry detergent. He’d gotten a dozen or so bottles at the grocery store because he had a coupon or a discount or both or something. I drank the smoothie, something like “Amazing Mango” or whatever, and went back to the basement.

By the time the clothes had finished the cycle in the dryer, I was in pain. I was feeling a tightness in my chest and a sort of rippling sensation up and down my breastbone. I immediately realized that I was suffering from G.E.R.D. (gastro-esophageal reflux disease). I’d been diagnosed with it over Memorial Day weekend, and I’d read all of the literature on it that the doctors gave me at Kaiser and even Googled a bunch of information on my own. I thought I knew most of the foods that triggered severe reactions and had avoided them as much as possible. Mango juice was not on the list.

When I brought the finished (folded) clothes upstairs, I took a couple or three calcium tablets and hunted through the refrigerator for the smoothie. I started scanning the ingredients and found the culprit. The alleged mango smoothie contained the juice of more than four oranges! Citrus juice (or, more likely, citric acid) is one of the biggest causes of G.E.R.D., and I had removed it almost completely from my diet. Or, at least, I thought I had. I gave up a lot for this stupid disease. I had cut down on chocolate (a very tough sacrifice), I had stopped drinking carbonated soda, and I had even started drinking less alcohol—all triggers. And then The Boyfriend gave me a mango smoothie on Laundry Day.

To be fair, I’m pretty sure that he didn’t intend to kill me. There’s no insurance money for him to gain, nothing like the plot of Double Indemnity or anything so sinister. He didn’t know that the smoothie manufacturer used orange juice as a major ingredient in what was purported to be a mango smoothie. I’ve started to read labels a lot more carefully, and I’ve found that lots of foods you’d never suspect actually contain citric acid.

I’m certainly never going to take a swig of another smoothie without knowing what it contains and no matter who hands it to me.