Running Through the Night

Saturday night I ran an all-night training run at Pemberton Trail, two full 15.4-mile laps plus the 9.2-mile partial loop that comes back on the Tonto Tank trail. It was my best trail training run in years.

Not a race, but a no-cost supported run, its purpose is primarily to train for the Javelina Jundred 100-mile trail race (on November 4th). Generous aid was provided at the trailhead by JJ race director Jimmy Wrublik and his father Rodger. Jimmy reports seventeen runners showed up.

In return for my efforts I won the "Most Memorable Performance" prize, the only award given. I had the choice of a pair of Patagonia silkweight shorts and a bottle of Jose Cuervo tequila. I already had a pair of the shorts from the all-night 12-hour run at Nardini Manor last year, in support of the Katrina disaster, and don't care for them, as I think they're more like a playboy's underpants than running shorts, so have never worn them. Happily, I drove off with the Jose Cuervo. I was strongly tempted to pop the lid and drink it on the way home, as the sun was just coming up.

No I wasn't. Just kidding. But the thought occurred to me as the bottle sat on the front seat next to me.

My total on-the-trail time was 10:39, but I logged it as three separate runs in my records because I had different objectives each loop. Every end I stopped my watch and took my time at the trailhead to regroup before heading out for the next. I won't have that luxury at JJ.

When I looked at my logs from 2004, at which I ran the identical workout, but unaccompanied by a pacer, I completed it nearly an hour slower. I'm in better shape now than I was then.

The weather was utterly perfect all night, with a high in the mid-seventies at the start, when it was still light, to the low sixties by approaching sunup. We had the luxury of a full moon in totally cloudless skies. Moonrise began about a half hour after we took off, and the moon still had not set when I arrived home at 6:40am. It was glorious, bright enough for us to see our shadows, and made it possible to see everything for tens of miles around.

The JJ race itself will be held four weeks from yesterday, therefore also on the night of a full moon. The RD has always aimed to schedule it as close to that celestial event as possible.

One factor that enabled me to perform my best was running the entire distance with the person who will be my pacer during the night hours until the finish at JJ in a month: Laura Nagy, a superb runner I've known almost the whole time I've been ultrarunning. In 2003 she and Alene Nitzky co-directed my favorite race Across the Years, when the regular RD took a year off, so I had pleasant opportunity to work closely them both in helping to present that.

Laura is a multi-sport athlete who trains meticulously. At one time she was a 3:02 marathoner. She has won a number of ultras, finished well in some 100-mile races, and is now training for the Phoenix Ironman next spring. Though a software jockey by profession, she is an ACE certified trainer, and thoroughly expert in the technicalities of endurance sport. Helping motivated athletes to reach their goals, both with training advice and pacing is a service she enjoys providing voluntarily to people of her own choosing.

I didn't directly ask Laura to be my pacer. She answered a query I put out to a local ultrarunning list for anyone who would be willing. Knowing her and her abilities as well as I do, I jumped at the chance.

Laura said that she had biked for three hours Saturday morning, and decided to stop because she didn't want to be "too tired" to run all night. Sheesh.

One of the advantages of having someone so competent in my company was that I knew that no matter how often or how fast I wanted to run, she would be right there. I never once had to turn around and ask if it was okay to run, or if she was doing okay and needed a break.

Last night's run was scheduled to start at 7:00pm, but as an untimed event, it didn't matter when people started, nor how much or little they ran. Laura and I arrived at the site within seconds of each other just before 6:00pm. With getting set up, suitably pottied and ready to roll, we were able to take off by about 6:15. It was still light enough to see without flashlights for the first 1.5—2.0 miles.

We were both armed with superior green-LED flashlights. I also had my 3-LED Princetontec for backup, which was useful mainly at the trailhead for fussing with gear, also on the road for digging for electrolytes.

The single biggest mistake I made of the night was a failure of preparation: As I put on my footgear, following my usual ritual of taping, lubrication, and double sock rolling, I realized to my utter consternation that I had failed to glue velcro strips to the heels of the shoes I would wear, necessary in order to attach my gaiters. My option was to wear older gaiter-prepped shoes, but the newest of them have 600 miles on them, and I wasn't willing to do that.

I definitely should have. I will never again run any trail without gaiters, as the way I run tends to kick up enough dirt and pebbles to fill the bed of a pickup, much of which ultimately finds its way beneath my feet, which comes to feel like running on a bed of pins.

In all I stopped at least eight times through the night to empty my shoes, to what I sensed was Laura's increasing frustration with me, and could have stopped many more, as I ran many miles with shoes full of rocks until I could no longer stand it. As I write this, my heels in particular are still raw. Big mistake — real big mistake. But that's what training runs are for: to rehearse our mistakes. Err ... make that to identify them so we don't make them again in a real race.

Laura had designed some sadistic plans for me, namely to run some hard uphills, and also to run a few other sections fairly hard. Though I raised an eyebrow at the notion of doing hill and speed training in a 40-mile training run, I had committed myself to trusting her guidance, as it provides for me the most realistic hope I have of making it to the end of JJ under the cutoff, after going 0-3 in that race for finishes. (The race's dropout (DNF) rate has been close to 50% all three years.)

Therefore, I suggested we do the first loop the "hard" direction, where there is a 3.2-mile jeep trail that is steady uphill (therefore all downhill in the other direction). While not a difficult stretch by any reasonable standard, it's sandy the whole span, so demands that the runner be on the lookout to plot the best line across the higher, harder-packed portions, made slightly more difficult in decreased light.

Run it I did, trying to keep my pace up, from Cedar Tank to the turn south at the northwestern extreme of the trail. The middle third of the trail I ran when I could, which was more often than not, and walked when I couldn't. When we reached the rocky 3-mile stretch along the southern ridge, which is downhill, but tricky and laden with potential for extremely unpleasant injury if one falls, I managed to run almost all of it, working as I always do in that section on my technique of spotting and planting steps carefully, and lifting my feet so as not to catch a toe. It's been a couple of years since I've tripped and fallen on that path, from which I conclude that my form has improved.

After coming down off that ridge, it's a gentle two-mile run over undulating dirt mounds back to the trailhead, of approximately equal technical difficulty (not very) in either direction, though being at the start or end of a loop respectively does have an impact on one's perception of its arduousness.

We completed the first loop in 3:32 — somewhat slower when I checked my watch than what I had guessed. I was thinking sub-3:15. Silly me. My PR for a loop, carrying only a single water bottle, is 3:04.

Our unrecorded turnaround time was somewhere around fifteen minutes, maybe a little more.

We headed out on the second loop the opposite, "easy" direction, with a different purpose in mind. We walked a fair amount of the first section, including most of the rocky ridge strip, and ran after that where we could, but I saved my best effort for the north jeep road, this time in the downhill direction. I stopped once at mid-point to empty shoes, take electrolyte and what have you, but overall it was a good piece of running. From Cedar Tank, immediately after which it becomes single track, back to the trailhead, we ran most of the downhills and walked the uphills, arriving at end-of-loop in a total of 4:23.

Regrettably, I made the mistake of inadequately replenishing my water supply after the first loop, thinking I had far more left in my 100-ounce Camelbak Mule than I did. I should have looked instead of hefting and squeezing it. Dumb mistake. As I result, I ran the whole last six miles entirely without water, and without that I was also reluctant to guzzle the chocolate Hammer Gel that I carried in a flask in my hand, that had begun to taste like medicine.

On all three loops, until the final mile, I ran ahead of Laura, being allowed to set my own pace rather than having to struggle to keep up with her, from which point I could also hear her better. (I have a slight hearing problem.) She could have run twice my speed if running for herself, but she never once suggested I should run when I was walking, or that I should pick it up. Knowing she was always right there was great incentive to keep going for longer.

We regrouped once again, perhaps a couple of minutes faster than after the first loop, and headed out for the third "Tonto" loop. Within thirty seconds I realized I didn't have my green LED flashlight, so ran back to get it, adding another minute and a half to my loop time. Big deal, but I would not have wanted to do it with just my Princetontek, so I'm glad I noticed before I got any further.

At Javelina Jundred, the final portion consists of running out the counterclockwise direction to the aid station at the west Tonto Tank trail junction, then taking the easy 2.7-mile downhill trail back to the eastern junction, followed by a one-mile return to the trailhead on the same road we came out on, a total loop distance of 9.2 miles, and making a race total of 101.6 miles.

It was my determination to power walk the portion all the way from the trailhead to the Tonto Tank turnoff. Sometimes when I'm walking with someone I tend to walk a bit slower than I'm capable of, as I believe happened last night, because we got involved in chatting. In a training run it didn't really matter. Besides which, my feet were hurting from all the rocks, both inside and outside my shoes.

When we finally hit Tonto Tank, after a final shoe-emptying session, I took off. Following a brief period where I got used to running again after not doing so for the past two hours, I started to push it as hard as I was still able, given that I already had over 36 miles on my legs for the day, that it was by this time around 4:30am, and as should go without mentioning, I'm 63 years old and have no talent for running whatever.

Soon I was in a zone, leaping over the speed bump logs placed like hurdles every 25 yards or so (an annoyance), extending both my stride and turnover, letting gravity pull me, as I tore down as fast as I dared without doing something dumb that would cause me to trip and be badly injured. A few times I checked over my shoulder to be sure Laura was still close by. How silly it was of me to think that my pace was in any way a challenge to her. The worst thing that happened was I once again had to make more adjustments in my foot placement to compensate for the confounded rocks in my shoes, which were beginning to feel like needles.

I ran every step of that stretch, all of it hard, until we reached the east terminus, upon which Laura reminded me we were not done. Oh yeah, we had another mile to go. This is when Laura at last took the lead, providing a practice session for what we will do at the end of the race, if we get that far. She began gently trotting and then walking about twenty steps each at a time, making some adjustments for the greater than average hills in that section, and gave me instructions to just follow and imitate her, which I did to the best of my ability.

The trailhead is not visible at nighttime until about 100 yards out, where there are still a few more lumpy hillettes to negotiate, but from that point on I ran it in. Laura began calling back to me from a bit before that: "It's 29:55 ... 29:56 ..." At first, being thoroughly fried, I didn't know what she was doing, but obviously she was simulating a close fight with the clock just before the cutoff. Finally, I came storming into the parking lot, and ran clear to the other side, where the aid station was still up, and a make believe finish line, before stopping my watch at 2:44:07.

Among the good things that happened last night was that I experienced not one single second of sleepiness. I carried caffeine tablets with me, but never took one, because I didn't need one. Sometimes they work for me, but sometimes they don't, or worse, they upset my stomach, so I won't take one except as a measure to ward off relentless sleepiness.

I was never discouraged, nor did I wish I could just quit. Just as well, because once you're out on that trail, quitting is not an option, short of waiting for a park ranger on an ATV or a $5000 helicopter ride to retrieve your sorry butt in the morning. When I finished my adrenalin was pumping, and save for my impaled feet, surely could have gone out for another loop if it had been in the plan. (But I'm glad it wasn't.)

We were the last ones in. We sat down to chat with Rodger and Jimmy and Robert Andrulis for a few minutes, by which time the natural cooling off of my body combined with the early morning temperature led me to feel chilly. With dawn beginning to approach in the eastern sky, we packed up and went our various ways. Believe it or not, Laura dashed off to prepare to teach Sunday school this morning at 9:30. I don't know how she does it.

For me, it's a 45-minute drive home. By the time I got into Fountain Hills the lack of sleep started to make itself felt, requiring me to drive home with the utmost concentration. I arrived home safely, took a 15-minute shower, and crawled into bed, my wife still sound asleep, at 7:45, and slept for three hours.

Laura suggested an ice bath, which sounds like a good idea, but I was much too tired for such a thing when I got in. We had to go out in the late afternoon, and I considered soaking my legs in the shallow end of our swimming pool when we got back — but I just had to watch the St. Louis Cardinals beat San Diego. While watching it I ran our excellent massage vibrator over my legs, which helped a great deal.

Despite feeling sorer and more tired than I've been following a training run in years, overall, it was an enjoyable and beneficial outing that should go a long way toward preparing me for Javelina Jundred next month.

A 42.5-Mile Night Run

As I'm training for the Javelina Jundred 100-mile trail race, my training schedule has called for a progressively increasing very long run every four weeks since May. As of today I'm still on target.

A month ago I did a 40-miler, so the objective of yesterday's run was to do 45 (maybe 50) in 12 hours if possible, but in any case, more than 40. Mission accomplished.

This was not yet another indoor track run of the type for which I have become infamous, but an all-night grind on an asphalt loop around a golf community where Gary Culver, an active local ultrarunner lives \u2014 all pre-approved by the community's recreational events management, so we wouldn't be questioned by the security patrol and run off as loonies.

The course is proclaimed by official signs with mileage markers along the way to be exactly 2.5 miles. Gary verified this as 2.501 miles on his bicycle. It's all on asphalt, almost continuously curving, but very gently so the constant turning is not a problem on the legs. There are a couple of mild rises encountered in the counterclockwise direction we chose in order to run toward traffic, compensated for by long, almost imperceptible descents. It's a perfect place to run for runners of the type who habitually get their exercise by heading out their front doors to a standard nearby location, and indeed in the early morning there were quite a few walkers and bicyclists out. Being within a gated community, traffic is was very light during the evening and early morning hours, with none at all during the dead of night. If I lived there I would probably give up my Bally's membership and get used to the heat.

There were just two of us the whole night. Many were invited but few came, to paraphrase an illustration of Jesus. No one else could be talked into this folly.

It was not to be a routine evening. When we started, at precisely 6:00am by my watch, what I was told was the edge of hurricane John was rapidly hurricane rolling in.

We ran two loops in good time while winds whipped up angrily, blowing over our tables. Some light rain pelted my skin like gravel being kicked up because of the impact of the drops caused by the wind. Incredibly evil black clouds headed our way, accompanied by disconcerting lightning. To that point it was still runnable, but the lightning was sufficiently disturbing as to cause us to have second thoughts.

Gary's wife Sandy showed up to share the weather report. (They live a quarter mile from the clubhouse where we based our aid stations.) Exercising prudence, we stopped our watches, packed everything in, threw it in our trunks, and went to Culvers' house to chat, drink coffee, and monitor the weather channel. We learned that the most dangerous part of what was to come had already passed by, and while it would continue to rain for a while, it would do so fairly hard, but not torrentially or dangerously, then would clear up by late evening.

So we headed back out. The total break from the time I punched my stop button until we started again was an hour and ten minutes.

It rained hard enough to flood the streets in places. I couldn't avoid wading through water that came up over my shoe tops, which also impeded forward progress, slowed also by the constant weaving around the puddles that was necessary rather than running the shortest path. But that and the wind served to make it pleasantly cool, and good running weather. It had been 105 during the day. I didn't mind at all running in the rain, and neither did Gary, and while running all night in the rain seemed like a crazy thing to try at the start, by a minute after beginning our second loop it seemed perfectly reasonable. The first ten miles was some of the most enjoyable running I've done in quite a while.

It stopped raining around 11:30, and while it was still plenty wet, the streets drained in the duration of a couple of laps, then nearly dried off. It rained briefly again around 4:00am, but not hard nor for long. It was never uncomfortably warm.

The rest of the night I just kept on cranking, never taking a significant break except for seven minutes to visit the comfortable, clean bathroom outside the clubhouse that by prearrangement they left unlocked for us.

My lap splits slowed incredibly, to about 160% of what I started at. I had one tough lap from 25—27.5 miles, when my stomach protested, and my will power waned, but it passed, and my next lap was one of the best of the night. Gary had a slow time of it too, though he was going faster than me. His goal was 100K, but it was soon apparent he would not make it, as I would likely not make my 50 miles.

By the time we quit, with 11:34:27 total elapsed time on my watch, and not enough time (nor heart) remaining to do another full lap, I'd gotten 17 laps, for a total of 42.5 miles, and Gary had gotten 45 miles. On a shorter course I would have had time to walk far enough to make it an even 44 miles, despite the complications of the evening. This performance falls squarely in the middle of my other four 12-hour performances, so given the conditions and other factors, I'm satisfied that I was at least on target rather than behind where I hoped to be at this time.

The aftereffects of running on asphalt are tougher than on a trail or on a rubberized track because of the more severe jolting the body experiences. I felt fine when I left, but by the time I arrived home, a thirty-minute drive, I had bound up so tight that I could have used crutches to get out of the car and in the house. My still wet and funky gear remained in the car until late evening.

It was a painful chore just to shower and get into bed at 8:00am. Usually after going all night, e.g., following Across the Years, I feel fine after three hours sleep and can function well for the rest of the day, but today I never opened my eyes until 2:15pm, and have no intention of doing much of anything the rest of this day. I'm hobbling around the house like Grandpa McCoy. It's going to take a few days to get back to normal from this one, and the only thing I can attribute the difficulty to is running on asphalt.

We were supposed to go out late this afternoon, but I opted to answer email, mess around on the computer, and sit on my butt in front of the TV. I can't remember when I've ever been so wiped out after a run of that duration. I ran a 40-miler just a month ago, and aside from some dehydration-induced cramping, was just fine the rest of the day.

Every run is a learning experience.

Running Pemberton Trail

Saturday afternoon I ran Pemberton Trail. The high in Phoenix was 102, about normal for this time of year. I didn't see another human soul out there the whole time, not even in the parking lot.

I felt good at the start, anxious to get in a good workout. I wore my light white sun running hat with the neck drape, M-Frame Oakleys newly outfitted with brand new dark gray polarized heater lens, long-sleeve CoolMax running shirt, which I wear sometimes rather than depend on a superabundance of sun screen (also applied in ample supply), bandana on my left wrist, headband and newish Timex with Big Numbers on my right wrist (lefties often wear watches on their right hand), the Champion underliners that I refer to affectionately as Big Fancy Underpants — couldn't live without them, Patagonia running shorts, new pair of women's half-height nylons underneath regular running socks, Asics Kayano shoes, and my chock-full 100-ounce Camelbak Mule carrying ID, cell phone (as an experiment), a Powerbar, and drugs. (Well ... Succeed tablets, ginger capsules, caffeine tablets, Pepcid A/C, and Advil.)

I headed off in the "hard" direction — counterclockwise, not knowing just how much I would actually be running in the heat and carrying all that stuff. I surprised myself by running at least three quarters of the loop, but eased into it by running a few steps, then walking, then running a longer stretch, and so on, until I was running all but the steeper uphills. There aren't many, at least not that last more than 40-50 feet, on the first part of the course.

A couple of miles in you hit what in the opposite direction is the end of a majorly sweet downhill that lasts for about three miles, but going counterclockwise it's (of course) uphill. By the time I got there I'd determined that I would do my best to run it rather than walk — something only a fool or an elite runner, of which I am neither, would do during a race. And run I did, with a break at the one-hour point to guzzle and slam down a Succeed!, and maybe two other brief walk breaks of thirty seconds or so each. I got to the end of that section less than ten minutes slower than it takes me to do it during ideal weather. The reason I ran it was simply because I've been delinquent about doing hill work, and with a 100-mile race coming up, I guessed I'd try to get a season's worth into a single run.

I was still doing just fine, so I continued the strategy of running the downhills and walking the harder uphills, which increase substantially at this point in the course.

Two hours into it, from the remotest point on the trail, I tried to call my wife on my cell phone, but it was futile. There is no signal at all out there, so carrying a cell phone for safety purposes is useless. That's the last time I'll try that, even though running alone in the afternoon where it's deadly hot and inhabited by snakes and other undesireables, but no humans, is not exactly the safest thing to do.

When I reached what turned out to be exactly the three-quarter mark timewise (3:00), I drained the last of my water — at a time when I had a mouth full of my last bite of Powerbar, and was hoping to have a little left to wash it down with. Ugh. Ptoooey! I had to make it the rest of the way entirely without water. It wasn't pleasant, but the only way to take more water is to add a couple more hand bottles, which adds enormously to the weight.

Usually I take just the Mule and ration the water. I've done this often enough to know that then I'll run out a mile or two from the end, and can get in before I start seeing pink elephants. This outing I decided to drink whenever I was thirsty, and allow myself to suffer the remainder. I figure the same amount of water is better off inside me doing some good than being carried on my back while becoming the temperature of fresh coffee. The difference this run is that during the hottest weather I don't usually go in this direction, and I rarely run as large a proportion as I did yesterday.

About a third of the way through the rocky section on the high south ridge I was surprised to see there's a brand new trail intersection called the Dixie Mine Trail. There's an official sign up that says Pemberton Trail in the direction you're traveling, like all the others out there, but the one pointing at right angles to the new trail, off toward the mountains, has just a piece of paper taped to it with the name, so it must still be very new. I hadn't been there since April, so hadn't seen this before. A map indicates that it leads about four miles southwest and does not reconnect with Pemberton Trail, so giving vent to my curiosity would have added about eight miles to my trek.

I still managed to run over most of the trickier rocky portions of that section — in fact, except for once at about 2:00am last October while running the fifth lap of Javelina Jundred, it's been a couple of years since I've caught a toe and bit the dust on that trail. I must be learning to pick up my feet.

There's a descent from that ridge that leads back out to the trailhead that takes me about 25 minutes to cover coming the opposite direction on fresh legs on a cool morning, but by this time it was approaching 5:00pm. For part of it I was walking straight toward the sun, and couldn't bring myself to run for several minutes. When I turned north on the piece that leads out, which is quite lumpy with short rise-and-fall hillets, it was challenging to keep going, because by this point I was mostly toast, but I still managed to make that section from the descent to the finish in 34 minutes, missing a sub-4:00 finish by 33 seconds. I headed out hoping for 4:15, so I was satisfied with that.

You may think 4:00:33 seems like a long time to cover 15.4 miles, particularly for one who claims actually to be "running" much of the way. I've run a Pemberton Trail loop in the fast direction in as little as 3:04 — in cool weather, carrying only a single water bottle, in a race (the first lap of Pemberton 50K in February, 2004), and rested from several days off in preparation. And you'd be right, it is a long time, but all I can say in response is that heat and weight and going that direction on that particular trail add a lot to the challenge.

Whew! Only six and a half of those puppies and you've done the Javelina Jundred! I think I have some training left to do.

As soon as I reached the edge of Fountain Hills, I found first that my cell phone worked again, so I could let Suzy know I was still alive and on the way home.

Then I hit the first convenience store I could find and got a drink so big it took two hands to carry it back to the car — must've been at least a half gallon. It was nearly gone by the time I got home, and when I weighed in I was still four pounds lighter than my morning weight.

This week will be an easy week, as I'm planning on running an all-night 12-hour session next Saturday
night, hoping to get close to 50 miles, and want to be well rested for it.

Ape

There's a guy who comes to Bally's gym that I call Ape. I call him that because it's his name. Well, maybe not, but it should be. What else could his mother have thought when she first saw him?

Ape works out for hours almost every day, mostly in the free weights room. He stands about six foot three and in addition to his beard and pony tail has hair coming out of most every other pore in his body, which is also heavily tattooed. His arms are fire hydrants, his chest a steel vault. To top it, he's pretty ugly.

The Bally's gym I go to is laid out like this:

-----------------------------------------------
|                  track                      |
|  -----------------------------------------  |
|  |                               |       |  |
|  |        aerobics room          | stair |  |
|  |                               |  way  |  |
|  |                               |       |  |
|  |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~    ---|  |
|  |                         |     |    |o |  |(office)
|  |                         |    X|    |f |  |
|  |                         -------    ---|  |
|  |                                       |  |
|  |        machines, treadmills, etc.     |  |
|  |                                       |  |
|  |                                       |  |
|  |--------------------------             |  |
|  |                         |             |  |
|  |                         |             |  |
|  |       free weights      |             |  |
|  |                         |             |  |
|  |                         |             |  |
|  -----------------------------------------  |
|                                             |
-----------------------------------------------

The track runs around the perimeter of a large, open upstairs room. (The corners are rounded. Sorry about the limitations of ASCII art.) The aerobics room is partitioned across the back (inside) and right by ceiling to floor walls, which help baffle the noise from the rest of the floor.

Recently Bally's added some new equipment in the little enclave containing the X in the diagram: punching bags, including one of those dangly doodads would-be boxers train on. I've always assumed its main purpose is to help develop hand-eye coordination rather than strength. Ape has no more need for strength. I'm sure he could lift a rock the size of Ohio.

The dangly bag hangs beneath a platform designed to resonate. When anyone hits it even once, the noise thunders throughout the gym. If someone hits it moderately hard it at first causes people to turn their heads, as if to say: Whoa, what was that?? And if someone tries to use it seriously for the purpose it was intended, it causes a disturbing racket in a room already noisy with the din of treadmills, clanking weights, testosterone-enhanced grunting, and crude music coming over the excessively loud sound system. The bag goes Whackita-Whackita-Whackita-Whackita-Whackita-Whackita.

Ape recently discovered the new bag. It's become his favorite toy. Ape can hit it hard. Real hard — for a long time. When Ape hits the bag he gets utterly carried away with ecstasy. It goes WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA. "Oooh my!!!" is what I'm sure most of the people there are thinking when Ape starts up on the bag.

Last Saturday I spent most of a day at the gym knocking off a 40-mile run. By 2:30pm I was getting pretty ragged out, but still had a couple of hours to go. Then Ape arrived for his daily workout.

On this day Ape decided that he needed to do some bag work. I'm not sure for what purpose. Suddenly it started up.

Whackita-Whackita-Whackita-Whackita-Whackita-Whackita! WHAT THE!? Oh yeah, it's just him. Endure it. Time for some more.

WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA!

Break time. For ten seconds.

WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA--WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA--WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA!

Whew! It was pretty irritating already.

How long do you suppose this went on? Ten minutes? Guess again. Twenty? By thirty-five minutes I thought to myself: Say — he's been at that a really long time! Is he ever going to quit?

Heck, he was just getting warmed up.

Every fifteen minutes or so he would take a break and go to a machine where he could pull on weights that swelled up his enormous biceps. I believe the main reason he stopped was to let a skinny teenager use the machine for a minute or so, a kid who would make it go plunka ... plunka ... ... plunka-plunka ... plunka. When he got tired of that, or else found it's trickier than it looks, Ape would return for a little more bag work:

WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA--Whackita-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA--Whackita-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA--Whackita-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA--Whackita-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA--Whackita-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA--Whackita-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA-WHACKITA!

Okay, the answer to the question is: Ape beat on that infernal thing for a full HOUR AND A HALF!

Now, I don't fault Ape completely for this disturbance. Bally's put the bag there, loosely following the Field of Dreams dictum: If you hang it, they will punch it. Ape, as a paying club member, is as entitled to punch that bag for as long as he wants as I am to run around that track for nine hours at a time, as long as the resource is fairly shared with other customers.

But would you go up and ask Ape if it's okay for you to work in with him?

On Saying God

Near the beginning of John Updike's novel Rabbit, Run the main character Rabbit and his wife Janet are having a minor tiff while Janet watches Mickey Mouse Club on TV. Chief adult Mousketeer Jimmy appears onscreen and the following takes place, beginning with Jimmy's words:

"God doesn't want a tree to be a waterfall or a flower to be a stone. God gives to each one of us a special talent." Janice and Rabbit became unnaturally still. Both are Christians. God's name makes them feel guilty.

While ignoring the mistake that "God" is not God's name, I can nonetheless relate to what was portrayed here.

God was not talked about in my Christian home when I was growing up. Apparently my parents either thought it was inappropriate or they didn't know what to say because they didn't know anything about Him, so the safe thing was not to talk about Him at all. Such was the spiritual legacy I inherited.

For a while at age nine I had an interest in the Bible, from reading a Bible stories book for adults that my Grandmother owned. I even asked my parents to give me a real Bible of my own, a request that surprised them, but they happily complied. Because the real thing is more difficult to understand, and being given no instruction, my interest cooled quickly.

When I was in fourth grade I had to get up and read a paragraph from a book I had read in front of my class. It included some proverb that included words to the effect '... and God makes things grow.' Because I was embarrassed to say "God" in front of my class — or in front of anyone — I read instead '... and some word I don't know makes things grow.' My teacher did a double-take, knowing I was an excellent reader and would at least make a stab at some unfamiliar word, and called me on it, but she did not know the content of what I was attempting to read. Somehow I bluffed my way through it without having to say "God," but I was doubly embarrassed for being caught in what amounted to a lie.

By the time I was a teenager my father acquired the belief that it would be appropriate to say grace before dinner each night. Because he didn't know what to say himself, nor did any of the rest of us, he used a book of flowery, sentimental and religious sounding prewritten prayers he'd found somewhere, and each night would read one of them out of the book, a longer or shorter one depending on how hungry everyone was. My three younger brothers and I, perhaps intuitively sensing the inappropriateness of reading written prayers, would titter and make jokes about my father's newfound eccentricity.

Things changed later. In 1971 I became one of Jehovah's Witnesses. Thereafter I became Prayin' Sam for our family. Whenever I visited, and a need for one to pray would arise, because I was now viewed as religiously credentialed, especially once they learned that I was serving as an elder in my local congregation, with responsibilities of teaching and taking the lead in spiritual matters, I would be called upon to render the service.

But to use Jehovah's name in prayer to some people who don't know or recognize the Bible truth that Jehovah is in fact His real self-given name, that name being used as such in the original manuscripts nearly 7000 times, a Biblical fact that escaped them despite a lifetime of sporadic churchgoing, would be from their vantage point to pray to the God of Jehovah's Witnesses, which most of my relatives clearly did not want to become.

But it is not necessary to address God by his personal name each and every time, any more than it is to call a person by name, there being any number of substitutions that can be made. So in such prayers I would generally address Jehovah as "God," or as "Heavenly Father," both entirely appropriate. Of course, in doing so I was nonetheless always praying to Jehovah all along. And when those in behalf of whom I was asked to pray said "Amen," which they always did, they too thereby prayed to Jehovah.

Ha! Got 'em!

The Rudest Devices

On July 13th I became the owner of my first cell phone. My resistance to having one in the past was not entirely for financial reasons, nor because I suffer from high-tech phobias, nor because I'm an old-fashioned fuddy duddy. I've been an internetting software engineer since the mid-eighties, usually up-to-date on things that are new.

The change came because my daughter Cyra-Lea recently got married and moved to Indiana, where her husband owns a business, and is firmly rooted. While we miss her, this move is compatible with what children do — grow up and leave home, sometimes leaving families behind. Having to adjust hardly makes us unique. But in our desire to keep in touch, we got in on Cyra-Lea and Eddie's family plan, which for $15 a month per phone allows us to talk at any reasonable time, and also gives Suzy and me a means to communicate in emergencies. Our plan is to use it for little else so as not to eat into the kids' monthly allotment of minutes.

Minutes? There's a term that has taken on a whole new meaning in recent times. As in, "I can't call you tonight because I've used up my minutes!" Ten years ago someone overhearing that conversation would have no idea what it was about.

Telephones in general, as interrupt driven devices, are the rudest gizmos ever invented by mankind; I'm shocked by how enslaved people have become to them; the advent of cell phones has only served to increase their power over their owners. Users feel obliged to jump up and answer them no matter how important whatever else they are doing is.

When I worked for Motorola I would sometimes take advantage of this insight when I wanted to speak to my boss. If I went by his office and saw someone else was there, rather than stand outside and wait, or come back repeatedly, I would return to my office and call him on the phone. No matter who he was talking to, he would leap to answer the phone while the other guy had to wait. I got special pleasure out of doing that when he was busy talking to his own boss, a man I personally loathed. Meanwhile, my own problem would be resolved.

I have learned to ignore telephones. One day at Motorola my boss came by my office saying he'd tried to call me, and thought I was in. I'd forgotten that I unplugged my phone several days before when I was busy and didn't want to be interrupted and never got around to reconnecting it.

Yesterday we were doing the work Jehovah's Witnesses are known for, making return visits on people in their homes, which I sometimes refer to as "riding around in cars with girls," because of the spectacularly unproductive use of time it can be when done in the disorderly hit-and-miss manner it often is in our area. We had five in our car. I was driving. The lady in the back seat was on her cell phone more or less constantly the whole morning. As she got in the car she asked Suzy to describe Cyra-Lea's new house, and as Suzy started to talk, the inquirer punched up a number on her cell phone and began to talk to someone else. Nice.

At one home, while two people went off to talk to someone, we waited behind. I took the opportunity to call Cyra-Lea. The conversation went something like this.

"Hi Cyra-Lea, whatcha doin'?"

"Hi Dad, I'm buried in writing thank you notes. Why aren't you in field service?"

"I am in field service, waiting in the car. In fact I'm doing something right now something that I hate!"

"You hate field service!??" She took the bait.

I replied in a clear voice. "Of course not. I love field service. The thing I'm doing is taking the opportunity while I'm waiting in the car to yack on a cell phone instead of conversing with the others in the car, as though they aren't worthy of my attention. I've always hated it when other people do that to me, leaving me to stare out the window and look at my watch twice a minute, so I thought I'd try it and see if it gives me some kind of buzz that I was missing in hopes of figuring out what the appeal is."

Cyra-Lea cracked up on her end. I don't know if I made my point with the others who heard me.

A cell phone, properly used, can definitely be an advantage in simplifying communication.

On my flight to Indiana on July 13th, my flight out of Phoenix was delayed an hour so that I missed my connection. Having no cell phone, and not knowing my daughter's cell number, I had no means of reaching Cyra-Lea to tell them my arrival would be delayed two hours. As a result they wasted two hours looking, and we all missed a meeting that night.

Yes, I should have written the number somewhere I could get it so I could call from a pay phone, but I'd never had a flight bumped before, so it never occurred to me to do so. The irony was that I had my new cell phone in hand later that evening, as it was waiting for me at Cyra-Lea's house.

Upon returning I arrived at the airport to find that my flight was canceled and that I would have to stay overnight in Louisville. Suzy had preceded my return by eight hours and was planning on picking me up at 10:30pm, when she had to be up at 4:45am the next day to get to work. Without easy access to a phone it would have been tough getting in touch, as I would have had to find and dump endless quantities of change into a pay phone.

Regrettably, no protocol of etiquette regarding the proper use of cell phones has yet emerged, or if it has, I am unaware of it, and most people ignore it, as in most matters, the majority do whatever works best for them personally without regard for other people.

Balanchine Festival, Ballet Arizona

Saturday night we attended a Ballet Arizona performance that was billed as part of a George Balanchine festival. While the music, the dancing, and the choreography were all exquisite, the experience was not without eyebrow-raising issues.

We bought tickets six months ago, when I learned that the program would be all ballets based on Stravinsky's music, a composer with whom Balanchine had a close friendship and affinity. I particularly looked forward to seeing Agon, one of my all-time favorite pieces of twentieth century music, a work that was a pivotal influence in my own composition in the year 1962, and one for which I own the score and have listened to over and over, but have never seen in a ballet production.

The Medium Is Not the Message

Imagine my disappointment when we received mail telling us that the programming had been changed substantially. While still a Balanchine festival, the music was no longer exclusively Stravinsky, but Mozart, Stravinsky, and Tschaikowsky. Furthermore, though Agon was presented on another program in the series, we would not be seeing it.

My reaction was to write a letter of complaint to Ballet Arizona, pointing out that some people choose their performing arts events on the basis of content rather than medium. Such has always been true for me. When I choose a Phoenix Symphony concert, it is always because of the works they are performing, not just to hear the orchestra. It's about the Beethoven or the Ives or the Mahler, not about the Phoenix Symphony, which sometimes sounds great but is nonetheless second rank orchestra even on a good day.

Imagine in comparison going to the theater, expecting to see Hamlet, and learning that they decided to present Harvey instead; or an exhibition of Monet replaced by paintings on black velvet; photographs by Annie Leibovitz substituted by photos of Princess Diana taken by paparazzi; a solo concert by Keith Jarrett stood in for by George Winston; a contemporary music concert of Elliott Carter compositions reprogrammed with somniferous musical blatherings from Philip Glass; a reading from a new novel by Thomas Pynchon changed to Jacqueline Susann; the latest Woody Allen film screening Friday the 13th — Part 227 instead.

Ahem. I've digressed, but you get the point. Okay, admittedly Mozart and Tschaikowsky deserve better than to be compared with the likes of Jacqueline Suzann and Philip Glass. But their music has been played over and over — far too often, in fact. When such program machinations take place, I perceive the activity of the stuffed shirts who control the money in the form of substantial donations behind the scenes. When such things happen we see proposed summer festivals go from all Stravinsky to mostly Stravinsky to some Stravinsky, to maybe Stravinsky to who's Stravinsky? What could have been extraordinary becomes merely pleasant but not innovative.

All the Discomforts of Home

My second disappointment was to arrive and find our seats squarely in the middle of row nine — some of the best in the house — but squarely in back of The Head from Hell, bolted to the body of a tall, broad man who sat squarely. Seeing over him was as hopeless as if I had been seated directly behind a pillar, and the seat next to me was not vacant.

During the first two ballets The Head listed somewhat to the right, which helped, but during the last work I missed the right third of the stage entirely except when I bobbed back and forth to see what was going on over there, which surely was annoying to the person in back of me.

Such things are nobody's fault. They just happen, though it could be noted that in a sports stadium people never have obstructed views because of the steeper inclines of the seating sections. Given that they just spent a jillion quadrillion dollars rebuilding Symphony Hall to make it not much better than it was less than a year ago, I wasn't pleased to have to strain to see the program because of a Goliath in front of me.

Finally, it was uncomfortably warm in the theater. I'm not the sort of person who notices small variations in the environment. But the high temperature in Phoenix was 111.9 during the day, it was still 104 when we left the performance at 8:30, and it was flat out too danged hot in there during the performance. An attendant told Suzy that the dancers like it warm. Well whoop dee doo. What about their gasping audience, which is not leaping around the concert hall wearing tights? Word must have spread, because during the third work the temperature dropped into the reasonable range.

Applause Protocols

Something that disturbed me throughout the performance was far too easily provoked applause.

There is a social protocol regarding when to applaud that people who regularly attend performing arts events readily learn. It differs depending on the medium.

At a rock concert the background noise, which includes constant bedlam and screaming, is high, but is usually drowned out by the deafening music, so it doesn't matter when the audience stands, dances in the aisles, and sings along. This is hardly ever done at a Schubert song cycle recital.

In a jazz performance it is usually considered acceptable to applaud following an improvised solo, even though the music continues. Even at the opera it has long been an accepted tradition to applaud a soloist at the conclusion of an aria or soliloquy. Generally the conductor will halt the performance until it subsides. But imagine the impression that would be made if the tenor hit and held his high C and the audience went into a wild frenzy before he concluded his phrase.

In contrast, in the era of my own lifetime it has been considered inappropriate to applaud during the pauses in multi-movement compositions at classical music concerts, because the entire work is considered as a single entity. Mendelssohn hated so much the lack of sophistication in this regard on the part of audiences in his day that he wrote concertos in such a way that the first movements segued directly into the slow movement without interruption, so the audience would be unable to applaud. Slow movements take care of themselves. To applaud following a serene Adagio would be like applauding a prayer in church. (Though I hear nowadays this would not be unusual.)

Imagine instead what impression would be made if the audience were to break into cheering following each technically challenging passage. The pianist, grinding out an impossibly difficult arpeggio within some tired, overplayed concerto gets to the end of it to be met by hoots of: "Ooooh baby, PLAY that thing!!" It just wouldn't be right.

So then, what is the currently acceptable Right Thing to Do at a ballet performance? What took place on Saturday night — on the part of others, not by me — revises significantly my memories of past ballet performances, prompting me to believe that things must have changed.

I was dismayed to find the audience to be applause happy. Every time a ballerina would catapult across the stage, going bouncety-bounce, twirly-twirl, deedly-deedly, kerthump, the audience broke into wild applause. The first time it happened I was astonished, and felt mildly embarrassed to be a part of such an unsophisticated audience — sitting among a bunch of hicks in suits. But it happened throughout the evening, and I was forced to conclude that this behavior has become the norm.

I asked myself: "What is this, the roller derby? The circus? Ted Mack Amateur Hour? An Olympic skating competition, where each triple toe loop is vociferously approved?" Where was the art? What had become of the sense of decorum, of the understanding of what was actually taking place on the stage, the unfolding of poetry composed in human movement?

To acknowledge a pleasing performance is a fine gesture, but the timing must be dictated by the context, which in the case of ballet should be determined largely by the structure and flow of the music, not by the astonishing physical trickery of the dancers.

The Mozart Divertimento No. 15, performed first, is a suite of five movements, the second being a longer movement consisting of a theme and variations. In a contemporary concert performance one would applaud only after the end of all five movements. A divertimento, as the name implies, is a diversion, a less formal piece than a symphony or sonata, so perhaps in Mozart's day it was appropriate to applaud between movements.

Used as the background for ballet, it seems somewhat acceptable to me to applaud at musical pause points — between movements, possibly even between variations in the second movement. But certainly not following every Big Jump. To do so interrupts not only the music, but also the ballet, which must go on without interruption.

Saturday there was some applause at some spectacularly inappropriate moments. In music there is what is called a I-6/4 (pronounced one-six-four) chord, a tonic (main key) chord in second inversion. In the classical era a harmonic progression into such a chord typically was the gateway to a cadenza, which means cadence, a harmonic formula that ends in a resolution back to the main key; it would be followed by an opportunity for a soloist to enjoy a truly self-indulgent moment in the spotlight. Cadenzas are invariably crowd pleasers because of their pyrotechnics, but in the hands of lesser composers, of questionable musical validity. But that's another discussion.

My point is that it is not the I-6/4 chord introducing the cadenza that reaps audience ecstasy, but what follows. Think: "Shave and a haircut —" (Clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap ...) "Two bits!" (More of the same.)

Yet such is exactly the point at which the audience applauded on Saturday night — a moment that was followed by a brief violin cadenza, although the containing work was not in concerto form. I've belabored the point, but my conclusion is: Well, that was just really a dumb and imperceptive thing for them to do.

But it got worse: We even encountered wild, enthusiastic applause on a fermataed diminished seven chord.

If you don't understand all the musical explanation here, never mind. Trust me — these are not proper moments to applaud a ballet performance. But that's what they did.

More Observations

During the first intermission I noted that the audience was about three to one female, a fact that I personally enjoyed. Many of the ladies were young and trim, probably including many who had taken dance lessons themselves and therefore had cultivated a degree of appreciation for the art form.

One thing that has always puzzled me about dance is why such a disproportionate number of male dancers are gay. One would think that being a male ballet dancer would be a good way to pick up babes for someone who is inclined to do so. (Not that I'm recommending it!) Female dancers are usually gorgeous, always in fabulous shape, athletic, artistic, and highly disciplined, and soloists work together with their male counterparts in a state of constant physical contact. Yet the ladies tend to find themselves hurled through the air by leaping sweeties in tights with bulging codpieces.

I'll add the caveat that of course there are always obvious exceptions, and that I know absolutely nothing whatever personally about any of the male dancers associated with Ballet Arizona. For all I know they all shoot pool and watch NASCAR after hours.

Oh dear, I've digressed again.

Say — What About Those Ballets, Anyhow?

My personal preference in dance is for modern and contemporary dance — Paul Taylor, Alvin Ailee, Twyla Tharpe, Merce Cunningham, and others — over classical ballet. George Ballanchine bridged the gap between eras, revolutionizing the world of ballet, with some of the most poetic expressions in movement I have ever seen. His work suits my taste magnificently, and to my eye Saturday's performance was flawlessly performed by Ballet Arizona.

I have mentioned already Divertimento No. 15, set to Mozart's music, largely an ensemble piece with relatively little solo dancing.

The concluding work was Serenade, based on the work of that name for string orchestra by Tschaikowsky, a lovely piece, particularly in its grandly dramatic opening and closing bookends.

By far the highlight of the program was Apollo, with music by Igor Stravinsky, written and choreographed in 1928, a transitional period for Stravinsky, after the big ballets that made him both famous and notorious in his earlier years, and before he found neoclassicism, but on his way there. According to a quote in the program from Balanchine himself Apollo also represented an important change for him. "Apollo I look back on as the turning point of my life ..."

Apollo is a magnificently subdued work of restraint, using only seven dancers, only one male, in the title role. The introduction was danced from a seated position atop a high staircase by a lone woman. Most of the remaining sequences were performed by Apollo and three female partners representing the Muses Terpsichore, Polyhmnia, and Calliope.

To describe motion is beyond my journalistic ability, so I won't attempt to do so. The overall effect was deeply moving, responded to with an appropriately timed standing ovation on the part of the audience, and was worth the price of admission all by itself.

My only gripe is still that I missed seeing Agon.

Conquering the Voice

Whenever I go to the gym for a run there is a period of time between when I quit working for the day and when I arrive, during which my mind engages in relatively unproductive thought. It provides ample time to dwell on negatives, as I rapidly begin to unravel for the day. Upon pulling into the parking lot, I'll turn off the car engine, put my head on the steering wheel, sigh deeply, wish I could take a nap, and as I review the facts of my life, a voice whispers into my ear all the reasons I should turn around and go back home.

In the span of a minute all the worries, the cares, the frustrations, the pain, and the crushing agony of day to day life envelop me and proceed to suck all the wanna out of me. I am reminded that no matter what it is that I choose to be doing at any given time, there is also something else that I could and should be doing; at that time running seems to be of comparative insignificance.

Then I remember that years ago I made a deliberate decision. As difficult as working out can be some days, I've promised myself to opt for minor discomfort on the road or track, daily muscle pain, and tiredness over doctor bills, continual day-to-day illness and early death.

There are no guarantees it will work out that way, but the odds for better physical and emotional health and enjoyment of life are far better for one who exercises faithfully than for one who does not. So far doing so has brought me nothing but benefits, so why should I stop or even pause?

"Get behind me, you cursèd unmentionable orifice!" I say to the voice. Whereupon I drag my discouraged vessel of life from the car — between May and October stepping into oppressive heat — pull my gym bag from the trunk, and slowly drag my carcass toward the building, calulating ways I can cut today's workout short, usually with plans to make up the effort Tomorrow.

Anywhere from forty-five minutes to several hours later I reemerge from the building a different person. In most cases I have conquered the voice, I feel wonderful, and am ready to tackle whatever may come for the rest of the day.

Non-Utilitarian Apparel

There is a certain arbitrariness born of tradition regarding what is considered dressy attire. Utilitarian wear is not the first principle of design.

There is nothing intrinsically praiseworthy from a practical standpoint about tying a piece of cloth around one's neck that gets in the way. They don't call it a tie for nothing. It's a form of restraint. A necktie is a symbol of repression. Nor is there anything praiseworthy about wearing a coat either indoors or out in a city where the daily temperature often reaches 110 degrees Fahrenheit. Likewise, there is nothing commendable about women who wear high heels that throw their bodies out of alignment, forcing them to walk more slowly, and risking spinal and ankle injuries.

Men are considered to be "dignified" when they wear suits and neckties because this is what the business community wears. The implied assumption is that the business community is considered dignified, on the whole a group to be looked up to as a standards setter. The reality is much to the contrary; it is mostly those who strive to become a part of that community who narcissisticly confer that status upon themselves, and because they come to be the ruling class in society, impose it on others.

Jehovah's Witness men (of which I am one) are strongly urged to conform to this standard of appearance. Why we are required to imitate the appearance of greedy sleazebags who rule a class of individuals that God has promised to destroy is an amusing question that has never been adequately justified to my own satisfaction.

If we are to imitate a class of individuals, why not choose a class more worthy of the honor, such as college professors, or professionals?

The efforts we make in our widely known work of visiting people at their homes would certainly improve both in quality and quantity if, when engaged in the work, we would wear clothing that is appropriate to the conditions rather than that which causes people who already regard us as flakes to conclude that we are also unreasonable.

Such clothing can still be regarded as attractive rather than slovenly, in addition to being practical. In the hot months in Phoenix standard items of apparel might include dressy walking shoes rather than formal dress shoes, shorts rather than long pants, moisture wicking, short sleeve, collarless shirts, and hats for head protection. But that's not what we wear.

Nonetheless, the standards are what they are, and are unlikely to change.

Giving Awards

Mankind is inextricably addicted to the ceremonious giving of awards.

When I was a Boy Scout, our troop had a pancake making contest. I took it seriously, thinking the intent was to make the finest-looking stack of pancakes possible. Some of the other boys brought in pancakes that were weird colors and decorated with all manner of doodads.

I chose to submit a single buckwheat pancake, one which covered the entire plate, and was perfection in its evenly distributed dark brownness and texture. I arrived optimistic about my chances for first place, for as a pancake my entry exemplified perfection.

When they announced the awards, mine was the first to be mentioned: It won the title "Heavyweight Champion." I thought that was a might flippant for such a fine specimen of pancakehood, but I was initially gratified to receive the honor.

My delight was only momentary, however, as thereafter the scoutmaster began giving awards to the ones that looked like gangrenous organs, and those with flags attached. It didn't take long to realize that every pancake-maker was getting an award, which meant that my challenge had not been a contest at all, but simply an exercise in pancake making. I should have felt gratified by the knowledge that I'd done a good job of nurturing a useful skill. Instead I was ticked off.

At the same time I learned a lesson: The more awards you give out, the more it becomes like giving awards to nobody.

Whereas it's a fine thing to acknowledge another person's worthy accomplishments, the act of award giving is prone to becoming a shallow act of feel-good psychology, something akin to giving a hug. The Oscars are a prime example of that truth. Another is giving deeper and deeper awards to increasingly narrow age groups at races, something seen frequently at amateur sports events.

Not long ago a New Yorker cartoon illustrated my point. A little boy in a sports uniform walks in carrying an elaborately fancy trophy as tall as he is, and announces to his bewildered father: "We lost."

Since the best I've ever done in a race with more than 100 people in it is about the seventieth percentile of my age group, I've learned to live with this reality. I am unlikely ever to earn hardware, no matter how far down they go, until the day I manage to outlive all the other competition. But I would rather get an award that represents a significant accomplishment, something I earned, than one which seems more like an entitlement.

Morons Need Jobs, Too!

To each person his own job is or becomes important. Morons need jobs, too. Give them their space; let them do their work.

When the average joe looks for a job, his primary objective is usually to find an occupation that will bring in enough money to pay the bills. Other considerations become secondary to that. If he can find something to do that he believes is important; wants to do; is trained for; puts him in an agreeable work environment; allows him to cultivate a measure of satisfaction in the act doing it; and also pays more than the minimum required by the job seeker; then those gains are all added benefits. But without sufficient money, other compensations are secondary. This is why many talented artists, musicians, and actors are sometimes seen working at mundane jobs.

On occasion a person gets a job that to most people seems stupid and purposeless. In order to maintain one's own sanity and sense of worth, the worker adopts or invents the employer's supposed sense of importance to it.

One example of that is the involuntary soldier, one who is impressed into service to fight, and risk and possibly give up his life for a cause that someone else in power believes in, but has found a convenient way to circumvent the need to fight for himself by convincing or forcing others to do it for him, even at the risk or cost of that other person's life. How often we will hear soldiers in the field sing the praises of the flimsy causes they have been sent to do battle over, as though they thought of doing so themselves.

When I worked at Motorla we had POPI inspectors. POPI (which I pronounced "poopy") stood for Protect Our Proprietary Information, a slogan that represented a whole well-intended system by means of which the corporation went to extraordinary lengths to prevent Bad Guys from stealing company technical information, including much that even the most jaded spy wouldn't give a toot about.

Much rigamarole was involved, including the need to mark printed documents with ominous classifications, keep all cubicle drawers locked when we were gone, including those that contained nothing but pencils and paper clips, screen lock programs active, and even removable media such as floppies and tapes out of drives and in locked cabinets.

On occasion official POPI inspectors would show up at 4:00am, when theoretically no one would be there, to check each cubicle for violations. My own office was located in the remotest part of a secure building that was as far from the guarded gates as it was possible to be. Nobody was ever seen in that area who did not belong there. Furthermore, there was absolutely nothing in my cubicle of any interest to anyone, even to me. Nonetheless, I arrived one morning to find a pink citation for leaving a blank floppy disk in a computer that was not plugged in and had not been turned on in at least a year.

I had to wonder about the sense of pride and accomplishment it must have brought to that POPI inspector for having made such an important find. Here was a case of a man (possibly a woman, but let's assume otherwise) doing his job. Why? Because he seriously believed that ferreting out such hideous violations was important to the good of Motorola, the country, the world, and the universe? Excuse me while I gag. He did it because it was a job, probably the only one he could get within the company, which was at that time in a business death spiral, and because he was probably too much of a moron to do much of anything that was actually important.

Ironically, there was a co-worker in my department who could not sleep because of a back problem; he lived less than five minutes from work, and who would get up daily sometime after 3:00am, and would always be there between 4:00—5:00am. Imagine the surprise of the POPI inspectors upon entering that office and finding someone there at that hour. (It happened.)

If there was ever a stupid job, that was one, but someone made at least a part of his living carrying out those inspections at the direction of persons who certainly would never do them themselves. And because a man's job is his livelihood and often a measure of his self worth, he took it seriously and carried it out as if the future salvation of mankind depended on it.

Boredom Redux

Often I've claimed that I never get bored while running. I'll stick to that claim, with a minor rider. Sometimes preoccupation with something else can interfere with whatever task we are presently performing, such that we do it less well, or quit it entirely. This postulate applies particularly well to running.

This week I've had decent runs so far, including a five-mile tempo run Tuesday, a better than expected 10.25 yesterday, and 7.05 today.

The only thing wrong is that I scheduled ten miles for today, not seven. I was doing just fine, was enjoying myself, and would have had no physical problem doing the last three miles. So why did I stop?

Recently a flood of important matters has filled my mind: searching for re-employment once again; preparing for upcoming interviews with two big companies, both scheduled for next Monday; my wife and I have been busy rolling all our material assets into a trust and making a careful evaluation of where we're at; my daughter is getting married in June and will be moving to Indiana, and meanwhile has just sold her house and moved back in with us until then; working to complete a music project, other than when I licensed the distribution rights to my two CDs for commercial distribution, the first musical work I've gotten paid for in at least 23 year; and yesterday we had an Across the Years race committee meeting at our house, and work has begun in earnest to prepare things for this year's races. These and a host of other matters, includine the need to continue to keep up with all the usual day-to-day matters of life, continue to dwell in my mind and heart, and can be distracting when in the meantime I am also trying to train to run ultramarathons, and maybe lose weight while I'm at it.

Once in a while a desire to go do something else immediately becomes ovewhelming during a training run. Today I got a brainstorm on how to solve a programming problem I've been cogitating over. By seven miles into my run I declared the workout to be Good Enough so I could run home to make some notes about my programming project.

Wouldn't it be right to say that in essence I got bored with running today, because I let something of greater immediate interest deter me from my goal for the day? That's how I view it.

Wagner's The Flying Dutchman — Arizona Opera

Last night was the first time in 62 years of musical life that I ever attended a live production of a Wagner opera. At that rate I'll be 124 before I see my next one. I can wait.

The event du jour was The Flying Dutchman, one of Wagner's earliest works. The music was listenable, the singers were real loud — a prerequisite for singing Wagner, the orchestra played well, meaning the first horn player didn't crack too many high notes, and the sets were fabulous.

What was the plot? I'm not really sure. Something about a sailor condemned to ride around in a boat until he could find a faithful wife, which would somehow bring him salvation. It should be noted that it doesn't always work out that way, including in Wagner's own case. Theoretically this was based on something that was considered akin to slapstick comedy in its day, but Wagner had a way of putting a morosely serious spin on things.

'Nuff said.

At a performance time of three hours, Dutchman weighs in as one of Wagner's shorter works. So what does one do in a theater seat for that long? Obviously it's not possible to concentrate on Wagner for that long, so I whiled away the time writing Wagner jokes.

Q: What's the difference between a Wagnerian soprano and a police siren?
A: Vibrato.

Q: What do you get when you cross a Wagnerian soprano with a Mack truck?
A: Another Wagnerian soprano.

Q: What words about Wagner will you never hear?
A: That's the Wagner lover's yarmulke.

Q: What do you call all the scores to the Ring Cycle at the bottom of the ocean?
A: A good start.

Q: What did the Wagner lovers do before heading off for a performance of a Wagner opera?
A: Shut off their water, gas, and electricity, canceled their magazine subscriptions, had the post office hold their mail, got their affairs in order, and left their children at an orphanage.

Q: What is Armageddon?
A: The basis for an amusing Wagner comedy.

Q: Who are Moe, Curly, and Larry?
A: Actors from whom Wagner derived an epic drama about life, death, love, salvation, and universal truth. (He called it Parsifal.)

But seriously, folks ...

The production was excellent, and the singers some of the best the Arizona Opera has ever hired, particularly the soprano, who has a towering yet beautiful voice, and is not built like a weightlifter, as many Wagnerian sopranos are. In fact she's kind of a babe.

The Most Secure Place in the World

Many adventure and sci-fi movies show scenes of top secret highly secure fortresses surrounded by armed guards and protected by more hi-tech gear than the Pentagon can afford. Each of these movies leaves you convinced that there couldn't possibly be a more important place in the world.

What might be found in the Most Secret Secure Place in the ultimate sci-fi adventure movie of all times? All of the following:

• The ark of the covenant, with Moses' stone tablets.
• The real location for all the gold most people assume is in Fort Knox.
• Vials of all the most deadly viruses ever known, including smallpox.
• Gallons of the most destructive chemical weapons ever created.
• The world's largest stockpile of weapons grade plutonium.
• The files of the CIA.
• The guy who really shot Kennedy.
• Aliens from numerous galaxies outside the Milky Way.
• Elvis.
• Jimmy Hoffa.
• Madeline Murray O'Hare.
• Jesus Christ's high school graduation picture.
• A stone carved out of a mountain with the date that Armageddon will take place engraved on it.

Music As Wallpaper

Music today has become like wallpaper — part of the ambience. Hardly anyone ever just listens to it any more, unless it's to get up and dance.

As a child I became accumstomed to simply listening to music, allowing it to take over my full attention. Even when I was little, I would sit on the floor and listen attentively as my father practiced, sometimes for long periods of time. To some people nothing is more boring than listen to a musician woodshedding, but I enjoyed it.

We didn't have a record player during my youngest years. I no longer remember exactly when my father went out and bought a "hi fi", but by that time 33 1/3 LPs were common, a medium that was appropriate for the distribution of classical music, and much superior to the 78 RPM records that had become popular. Meanwhile, pop music came to be distributed with one song on each side of a 45 RPM record. I never owned more then a couple of those. I remember buying "Sixteen Tons" by Tennesee Ernie Ford on a 45 single, and listening to it many times. It was the very first record I ever bought with my own money.

In those days there was always the radio. Even then classical music broadcasts were infrequent, but whenever they were on, is was an occasion for my father to sit in a chair and listen attentively, so that's what I did, too. Before long I became a radio addict. Our radio was not portable. (They didn't have portable radios yet.) Our family owned only one, and when it was on, I sat right next to it and listened to it, for at least a couple of hours every night. I sat so close I could touch it, and loved the warm smell of the vacuum tube circuitry burning inside of it. I knew all the popular programs, the schedule, and what stations they were on, and could slip easily from one to the other, even there was no a mechanism to preset favorite stations. I had to turn the dial and "tune it in," adjusting it back and forth until the signal was the clearest.

When I started to learn music, it was already my habit to sit and listen attentively to it when it was playing. There was hardly anything to do that I enjoyed more. To this day my preferred mode of listening is with a score in my lap, because I don't want to miss any details, and I'm deeply interested in knowing how composers accomplished what they did. I suppose that's why I became a composer myself.

Today few people listen to the radio except as background noise. We listen to talk and news shows in the car when commuting because it saves what would otherwise be wasted time, enabling us to catch up on what's going on in the world when we are held captive in traffic, making it less urgent that we do so on CNN.com or news.google.com or to read a newspaper, or God forbid, by having to watch it on the evening news, when TV news has become a joke.

How Many Miles Per Whatever?

Non-runners will ask runners: "How many miles per unit of time du jour do you run?"

If the inquirer is a fitness oriented type who sees me at the gym frequently, he may be the sort of person who assumes that I follow a periodic routine, and that I run pretty much the same amount every time I go out. The most frequent expectation is that I run so much per day. My usual quick reply is that most runners track it by weeks and months, not by days. The "per" designation is just a handle by means of which one may discuss averages, which themselves may or may not be meaningful.

My own routine is surely not much different from most thoughtful runners. I record all pedestrian miles covered while wearing running clothes for the purpose of "working out" on a daily basis, often in miles to two decimal places when running a known measured route, whether I'm going for a short walk or a long run or some combination thereof. A training session for me can be anything from one easy mile to over forty. The distance almost always predetermined, usually at least days and sometimes weeks in advance.

In turn, those daily accumulations add up to seven-day weeks. In my log I record not only the week as measured from Sunday to Saturday, but each day I calculate a new sliding total of the last seven days, including on rest days. That number can be a good predictor of how well I might expect to do the next time out.

Weeks add up to months. For a while I also calculated the past month's sliding total as 30 days or 31 days, until it dawned on me that a month varies in numbers of days, and activity tends to cycle on a weekly basis, which throws variables into the number. Therefore I changed sometime last year to adding total mileage for the past 28 days on a daily basis regardless of the number of days in the current month —g four weeks, which is constant, and makes more sense as a guide to "how I'm doing" as far as recent mileage. So while my last 28 days might say, for instance, 180 miles, the month total of 30 or 31 days may wind up as 200 or more. That's okay.

Week and month totals tend to build and diminish over the course of a year, depending on complex variables including weather, upcoming races, and explicit training goals. I'll usually set a goal mileage for a month on the first of each month, using those factors, along with recent experience as a guide, and then will rough out the weeks, particularly the long runs so as to hit somewhere near that goal.

Keeping track of detailed training data is valuable, more so than having some vague notion about how much I'm running, which would likely result in not running enough to reach ultrasized goals. More data is better than less data in a sport where a scientific approach can give a person with minimal intrinsic skills (me) a greater advantage than a casual approach. So that's how I measure it.

As noted, other people will ask about my running, and it helps to have a way to discuss it. Because I train an unusual amount on an indoor track at a gym, there are quite a few people who see me on a regular basis, and know that I sometimes run fairly long mileage there. It's not unusual for someone to come up and ask: "How much do you run every day?" There is no answer to that question if taken literally that is both easy and correct. I could do a mental calculation in the knowledge that this past week I ran 48 miles, so could say "about seven", when the real answer is that I did a couple of short runs, a 10-miler, took a couple of days off, and ran 25 on Saturday. Or I could say "about 40-50 miles a week", or I could say so many miles per month. But when you're flying by someone who asks the question in passing, that's not the time to get into a big discussion or to present a lecture on how runners train.

In January I passed on the track an older gentleman I've never stopped to talk to who asked me, "How did you do on your last marathon?" The last race I'd run was Across the Years. I don't know how he knew that I had been in a race recently. I responded quickly: "Which one?" He scrambled for an answer: "Any one." I said "A hundred and forty-two miles!" as I glided out of conversation range, knowing he wouldn't have a clue what I was referring to. He shouted back, "Very good!" in a voice that clearly indicated he was confused and didn't understand my answer.

Still, I'm always happy to discuss this topic in any amount of detail with persons who are really interested and have the time. It makes little difference how one describes his routine. It is what it is.

A rose is a rose is a rose. — Gertrude Stein

A Simple Life

Many people stumble along the path from birth to death with colossal holes in their lives.

They never read. How can a person know anything if he never, ever reads?

They never think.

They never work out.

They never learn to experience music or art or drama and sometimes cultivate a distaste for artistic beauty.

They are immune to spirituality, and rarely give God or questions about the meaning of life a thought.

The puzzling thing is that it's not necessary to be complete in all these respects in order to create an illusion of happiness. Many people die happy and satisfied having never done much of anything.

When you think about it, who of us really knows or understands much at all about anything? Those who take the trouble to investigate the world around them learn above all that they are ignorant and haven't a clue; that notion troubles them and tarnishes their happiness.

Handel's Semele — Arizona Opera Company

On January 30th Suzy and I attended the Arizona Opera Company's performance of Semele by Handel. Some musicologists classify it as a "secular oratorio" rather than an opera, but all presentations of it I've found listed by Google have been completely staged — by opera companies — so it makes little difference what label one hangs on it. Remarkably, this was the very first baroque opera ever staged by AOC in its 35-year history. I do hope they do more of it — particularly more Handel; I'd also be happy to see some Monteverdi.

Upon arriving, I brought a lifetime streak to an end: we were late! Normally we leave home about 6:30-6:35 for a 7:30 performance, which almost always gets us through the front doors at Symphony Hall at about 7:05, with plenty of time to have a coffee and cookie, chat, look at the pretty dressed-up ladies and stuffed shirts, and prepare to be put to sleep soon.

On our journey we encountered an accident snarl on the I-10. It was bumper-to-bumper from there all the way to the parking lot. When we walked in they were playing the last measures of the overture. The decrepit volunteer ushers were whispering "There's still time to be seated!" — barely. They stuck us in the back row, which I guess is a penalty box they normally keep open for latecomers. At least it was roomy. The sound and view were naturally somewhat muffled from there, though not terrible. So it was from there that we saw the entire first act. If we had been fifteen seconds later we would have watched it on plasma TV screens in the lobby.

It was the first time in my memory of a lifetime of concertgoing that I was ever late to a performance event. (I'm not counting performances at Smith Music Hall while in music school that I may have wandered into during mid-performance, having not previously committed myself to going. I'll add that during my six years in Urbana I attended at least eighty percent of what was presented at Smith Hall — probably more.) Added to the fact that I had a bad experience that morning which upset me, I was disappointed to break my lifetime perfect record of on-timeness, so I arrived in a somewhat foul mood.

Naturally, the musicians used modern instruments, no doubt for a lack of appropriate gear and specialist performers, because after all, this was another performance by the AOC using their standard orchestra members; but the program said the singers followed eighteenth century vocal practice rigorously. It certainly sounded so to my ears.

The producers chose to present the work, not in traditional baroque fashion, but with twentieth century pop art staging. The first set consisted of five full-color giant female eyeball paintings hung high over the stage, reminiscent of Andy Warhol, with a set of stark black and white striped furniture. (I presumed the eyeball gender because of the makeup, though in 2006 such conclusions are by no means true.)

"Say what!?" I said to myself.

When a slight guy appeared in Ivy League garb, replete with sweater draped around the shoulders, sleeves tied in front, and a tennis racquet, and began flitting around the stage while singing the countertenor (falsetto) role, which at first, not knowing the plot, I mistook as an effort to portray him as gay as can be, I rolled my eyes, sat back in my chair, and proceeded to make a concerted and successful effort to fall asleep, convinced that the producers had lost their collective mind. It turns out he was scheduled to marry the title character — in the end he fell in love with and married her sister instead.

For readers who may not be aware, a countertenor is a male singer who sings in the female range, usually in falsetto. This may be accomplished in modern times through extensive training first as a baritone or tenor, graduating to specialization in the upper voice. In previous times, when such voices were valued by the Roman Catholic Church, and before it was outlawed, potential countertenors were given surgical help in their youth by means of a procedure that did not involve the vocal chords.

I'm sorry I fell asleep, though given my tiredness after my usual Saturday afternoon long run, a few moments of shuteye was inevitable.

By the end of the first act I started to come around, by which time I began to realize — Oh, this thing is a comedy! It's supposed to be funny. Meanwhile I'd dozed through some undoubtedly superlative music.

There were two intermissions. After the first act we moved to our much better usual seats. From the second act on, refreshed by my nap, I was able to pay proper attention.

The vocalists were by and large excellent, including the countertenor, who did not reappear until the last half of the third act. They did sound much like traditional opera singers rather than baroque specialists, other than the countertenor, who of course is a specialist, because there is virtually no other literature for countertenors, but they sang clean as a whistle.

The cast of characters numbered six. The title role went to a soprano with astonishing virtuosity. Some of the most technically demanding music ever written for singers — most fun to listen to — is to be found in the showy coloratura passages of Handel. In fact, Getting to hear singers showing off is probably what most people like to hear most in Handel's operas and oratorios. The questions that invariably present themselves include: how fast will they go, can this singer cut it, hit most of the notes, mostly in tune, keep up with the pace of the orchestra, and not run out of breath or appear to be left gasping for breath in the next eight bars before he or she has a chance to inhale again? In this regard I'm reminded of the challenges of the patter songs of Gilbert and Sullivan, except that in the latter they also have to deal with mind-bogglingly complex and tongue-twisting lyrics.[1]

[1] "I am the very model of a modern major general,
I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral
I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical,
From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical. ...
I know our mythic history, King Arthur's and Sir Caradoc's
I answer hard acrostics, I've a pretty taste for paradox
I quote in elegiacs all the crimes of Heliogabalus
In conics I can floor peculiarities parabolous."

Sheesh!!

The only singer I had reservations about was the bass, the father of the title character. It's one thing for a soprano to rattle through those long melismas under a cushion of orchestral backing, but to make it sound clearly in the bass range is technically almost impossible — as was demonstrated by this night's performer. He did perform one amusing and well-acted aria, though — a slower number, in which he was supposed to be the god of sleep trying to wake up, wherein he kept falling back over on his side, and letting his voice continue to drop another half another half-octave below what was written.

By far the best singer to my ears was the sister of the title character, a contralto by my estimation of nearly 300 pounds who shook the walls when she sang, manifested total control and freedom, breathtaking technique, acted superbly, and turned out to be quite the comic character. Upon accepting applause at the end, the enthusiastic cheers earned for her from the audience indicated that the masses in attendance agreed with my own assessment.

As I got into the performance I began to enjoy some of the humorous touches. One of the characters, the tenor who played Zeus, being a god, had the ability to make funny things happen at the wave of a hand, as couches would move into position, and needed objects would appear. The stage was tended by a group of five non-singing tuxedoed men, who brought things in and out, including cotton cloud bedecked scaffolding on wheels with a couch on top from whence various gods and goddesses sang.

In one aria Zeus sang to Semele and desired to give her some flowers, whereupon an attendant walked in with an enormous bouquet of roses, but while continuing to sing to unaware Semele, Zeus made a gesture indicating something bigger, whereupon the attendants wheeled in six 10-foot-tall ultracloseup paintings of roses filling the entire stage, making a most impressive backdrop.

In another, Semele has magically become transformed in such a way that when she looks at herself in a tiny mirror she no longer sees herself as a mere mortal, but as a goddess. She is so impressed with herself she can't get over it, and begins singing an aria that begins with the lyrics that go

Myself I shall adore,
If I persist in gazing.
No object sure before
Was ever half so pleasing.

which goes on and on to ridiculous lengths with no other lyrics added. Each time she launches into the amusing key phrase, beginning yet another session of self-adulation, another attendant walks in with a bigger mirror than before. In the background, the silent sister, who patiently endures it for the first several times (it was she who set the whole thing up in order to make Semele think she was a goddess and suitable match for Zeus, so she could capture the attention of the countertenor for herself), eventually started rolling her eyes, and eventually prostrated herself flat on the couch in exasperation. Surely this over the top immodesty must have been viewed as hysterically funny in Handel's day as well.

Semele, being mortal, could not really ever "unite" with Zeus, because it would destroy her, and Zeus knew it, but pursued it anyhow. He decides to go through with the unitification, but proclaims that he will use his lowest powered lightning bolt to incinerate her. At the critical time, first Semele disappears behind a screen, while making seductive gestures toward Zeus, following which Zeus shrugs his shoulders and joins her behind the screen. There is an enormous and comical flash of lightning and explosion, the screen is lifted, and Zeus is alone, but there is a large cloud of smoke where Semele supposedly had been happily uniting with Zeus. More yucks.

In another scene (I'm telling these things out of sequence), a refrigerator was wheeled out and left in the background. As each character entered, including the stage hands, he or she would go to the refrigerator and open the top compartment, which was stocked to bursting with yogurt cups. The character would take one and carry out the rest of the scene while spooning yogurt. In another scene later on, with the refrigerator still on stage, Zeus comes out to sing to Semele, and opens the bottom half to find it conveniently bursting with champagne bottles.

Other lyrics provoked titters from a 21st century audience, particularly the aria with the opening (oft-repeated) line, in anticipation of Semele's upcoming marriage:

Hymen, haste, thy torch prepare,
Love already his has lighted!

Hmmm. I wonder how many persons are aware that Hymen was the torch-bearing god of marriage in Greek mythology, the son of Apollo and a muse? I have to wonder if Handel himself saw the saucy double entendre that was implied?

By the conclusion of the opera, I was enjoying myself enormously. As the third act was about to begin I turned and said to Suzy: "This opera needs a chorus!" Handel wrote some of the greatest choral music ever written, yet this opera consisted to that point entirely of a sequence of solo arias (with a couple of duets), separated by mercifully short recitatives. Handel was an enormously popular and successful composer in his day, and clearly knew which side of the paper his check was written on, so I surmised maybe there would be a chorus in the third act. Georgie did not disappoint, as the Finale consisted of a glorious work sung by the entire cast (sans stage hands, who were nonetheless on stage). Okay, so a sextet, not a chorus, but with six parts rather than four, just as good -- and one of the best I've ever heard from Handel a well. It was shorter than I would have liked. In compatibility with our desire to see happy endings in comedies, the lyrics, Still saucy by their licentiously amoral implications, go:

Happy, happy shall we be,
Free from care, from sorrow free.
Guiltless pleasures we'll enjoy,
Virtuous love will never cloy;
All that's good and just we'll prove,
And Bacchus crown the joys of love.

In the end, judging by the audience's warm applause, a good time was had by all, and we left smiling and laughing.