The Road Not (Usually) Taken

I know how to get to the grocery store. I know how to get to the train station. I know how to get to the hardware store, the Italian restaurant we like and the park where we go to outdoor concerts. For those trips I throw caution to the wind and set out un-GPS'd. Yes, it's possible that there is road construction or a broken water main or something along the way that will cause me to make a detour. But having lived in the area for over 30 years I have a pretty good mental map of the streets around us. Not that I have taken every road, but I have enough of a sense of direction that even if I deviate from the usual paths I can get myself there and back.

For other trips slightly further afield, however, I confess that I do succumb to the mindless efficiency of Google Maps. You might be a Waze or Apple Maps person, but it's all basically the same. Enter where you are heading, confirm where you are beginning, tap the "Start" button and off you go. Just follow the prompts and the little car on the screen gets you there with a minimal amount of muss and fuss.  

Depending on your destination the app might show you a few options, with one being the primary. The others might be a little slower but more gas efficient, or just different for the sake of being different. Regardless of which you chose you will still wind up at the same end point. Assuming the trip is about an errand and not about a vacation, usually that first choice is the best: get me there in the least amount of time with the least amount of aggravation. 

On this particular Monday, the destination was the Department of Motor Vehicles to renew my license. Over the years I had been there numerous times, and could certainly make the trip with no digital guidance. However, because it was just a bit out of my normal circuit, I plugged my phone into my car, popping up the usual options on the screen. Yes, the standard route up the interstate was the quickest and highlighted in blue. Normally I would have just gone that way. But it was a drizzly day, I had cleared my calendar, and had an extra hour before my appointment. So...

I took a left versus a right, drove past the entrance to the highway, took the spur instead of the main. The nice thing about GPS is that you are never really lost, you're just going a different way. For sure my speed was far less than the 60+ MPH I would have clocked on the highway, with the result of adding 8 or 10 minutes to my journey. But I also wasn't dodging trucks and tailgaters, and was less concerned about cops and speed traps.  At the very least it was a more scenic trip, as I passed lakes and vistas that reminded me of why we like to stick around where we live in the summer.

But as they used to say in late night infomercials on cable TV: "Wait, there's more!" As I wandered my way north, I passed places and sites I had never been to or seen. I found the entrance to a bike trail I had always wanted to try. There was a little bakery at a nearby intersection I had always bypassed, one I will surely sample on that upcoming bike ride, not to mention a local pizza place I also added to my mental catalog.

Eventually I got to the DMV with time to spare. As a bonus I ran into an old friend and made a date for dinner, AND I was able to read the eye chart without glasses. I went home a different way, this time pausing to admire an outdoor sculpture at the entrance to a farm, as well as what turned out to be an 1860 stone mansion built by Patrick Ryan, the man who built the Hell Gate Railroad Bridge in New York City, at the time the world's longest steel arch bridge. So all in all a good day. With apologies to Robert Frost, when two roads diverged, I took the one less traveled. And while it didn't make all the difference, it was a way more pleasant diversion.

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Marc Wollin likes to keep his eyes open on more than just the road when he drives. His column appears weekly via email and online on Substack and Blogspot as well as Facebook, LinkedIn and X.

One Six Oh Oh

With all the digital help today, it's pretty unusual to miss a significant milestone. You get a reminder for birthdays, be it for your wife, your kids or your golf partner. You get a pop up for Arbor Day and Flag Day, not to mention Greek Independence Day and Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day. But I confess with all that is happening this summer I almost missed this one. And that's hardly surprising, as its celebrants are basically nil save for an audience of, well, me.

For you are looking at column number 1600.

At the rate of one a week, that's an unbroken streak just a dozen shy of 31 years. If you read the first column and kept going, and also invested in new company Dollar Tree at the same time, you would have accumulated approximately 1,200,000 words of miscellany as well as a +10,630% return. In either case you would have done better than putting your attention and money in things that went belly up including Netscape Navigator, Caldor, and yes, Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts.

Some of you might be stopping by for the first time and are wondering what you might have missed. At the risk of blowing my own horn, we have indeed covered a lot of ground. There was a look at weathermen (#14 – "Chance of Being Right") and home improvements (#54 – "Whose House Is It Anyways?"). There were discussions about female crash test dummies (#155 – "Hit Her Again") and grooming (#324 – "Brush Till You Drop"). We touched on celebrity perfumes (#541 – "Sweet Smell of Success") and the best beds (#741 - "Going to the Mattresses"). I feel pretty safe in saying that we have ventured at least a mile wide, even if in this space we only have time to go an inch or so deep.

Note that I say "we." While the creation of this is a solo endeavor, I do so knowing (hoping??) that I have any number of fellow travelers. Some drop me a note when something resonates with them or to suggest a possible topic to explore. Others take a quieter approach, responding to a particular effort with a "like" or thumbs up. And many more keep to themselves, occasionally and/or irregularly remarking to me "that one you wrote about... what was it?... I liked that one!" All are welcome. In each of those cases I am sincerely grateful that my efforts have pierced the noise and commotion that I know I myself am inundated with every single day. 

I am often asked how much time it takes to create these. This one is an easy one to write, as I have all the material at my fingertips. Others, not so much. I invest a good deal of time and effort researching the underlying idea, stretching it this way and that, and crafting something I hope you will enjoy reading and might even find interesting.  Through that process I learn more about mail services or limeade or solar storms than one needs to live comfortably. From that I try and mine a few tidbits that support my thesis, while also enabling you to be a better cocktail conversationalist. Hopefully I am successful more often than I am not.

As a curious individual there is still so much more to look into, topics which fill some unexplainable urge I have to learn about, and which I love to share with y'all. In the hopper are the germ of explorations on how AI is stopping me from swearing, how cars need more buttons, as well as the implications of the clock in our den advancing every two seconds instead of one. Is any of that important? I don't know, but stick around as I try and figure it out.

I will end this note as I do with my usual Faustian bargain. Thankfully it is not as damning as the original, "I am a servant to great Lucifer, and may not follow thee without his leave." Rather I offer you this: if you keep on reading I will keep on writing. I promise to use all 26 letters (when I can), try to go where the waters don't usually trickle and attempt to put a smile on your face a decent amount of the time. And know above all else that you have my eternal gratitude for coming along for the ride. That said, let's get back in the car and hit the road once again.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford plans to keep this effort going, if you will have it. His column appears weekly via email and online on Substack and Blogspot as well as Facebook, LinkedIn and X.

Sitting Out Loud

If you go to a sporting event, you expect people to wear their opinions on their sleeves. Indeed, since your view of the action is likely significantly better if you were to stay home and watch it on television, the main reason to go in person is to cheer and react and get involved in the game. You can revel in the home runs, groan at the fumbles and malign the refs eyesight to your heart's content as long as your vocal cords hold out.

Go to an opera or symphony, however, and it's exactly the opposite. Traditional decorum dictates that you sit silently, only reacting at certain specific moments. Even if the soprano hits a high F, or the violin executes a particular difficult cadenza, the audience sits mute waiting for the end of the piece to express its appreciation and admiration. Indeed, it is even considered a breach of protocol to applaud between movements of a symphony, resulting in a few scattered claps here and there from the uninitiated after the scherzo, interruptions which are quickly squelched.

The continuum between those two extremes turns out to be the theatre. For long periods of history, going to watch a play or musical was, if not a contact sport, certainly a participatory one. Playhouses were rowdy and noisy places. In ancient Greece and Rome audiences cheered, hissed and threw food at the actors. Shakespeare's Globe Theatre effectively had a mosh pit in front of the stage where the audience stood and drank beer, while rich patrons bought seats on the stage to show off their clothing. They could even procure spots to preen above the stage in private spaces called the Lords' Rooms, effectively the first sky boxes.

It was German composer Richard Wagner who turned the tide in the 1800's, enforcing a strict policy of silence and darkness at his opera house to watch what he viewed as sacred art. High society quickly adopted those rules, and the mark of refinement became a quiet and respectful audience. Audiences were to be like children: seen but not heard (until the end).

But that has been changing. We live in a participatory world, where everyone everywhere can make their opinion known anywhere anytime. The internet has democratized reactions both good and bad, not to mention shortened the publishing cycle from days and hours to virtually instantaneous. 

Makes no difference the venue. Restaurants? Pages comments online, often contradictory, lauding or hating everything from the food to the service to the décor. Stores? Likewise, with reactions not just to the quality of the merchandise, but also the delivery process and the customer experience itself. Plumbers, dog walkers, tutors: if you pay for it (and even if you don't) you feel you have a right, maybe even an obligation, to register your point of view.

And it seems as if the theatre is no different.

However, we're not talking about reviews after the fact, but commentary during it.  At a recent show on Broadway we attended, the audience was anything but subdued. They reacted as if they were in their living room watching the show on HBO. They cheered certain characters, professed outrage at insults and offered several rounds of applause, even standing ovations in the middle of the show. 

To be sure there are shows that invite audience participation, with the current darling being Broadway's "Every Brilliant Thing." In a role originated by Daniel Ratcliffe and currently occupied by Tracee Ellis Ross, a solo performer engages the audience to create a list of things worth living for. A few years ago in a staging of "Jesus Christ Superstar" done live on television, the audience lined the thrust stage and Christ played to them as if they were indeed the rabble. And multiple interactive shows invite the audience to watch and be part of the crowd at a wedding or a murder.

First appearing in a cartoon in the British magazine "Punch" in 1846, it is believed to be an old Cockney stallholder's cry to customers: "You pays your money, you takes your choice." Updated for today, it might be more like "you pays your money, you get to have an opinion and proclaim it." Personally, I prefer to wait till the end and then render a judgment. For others, it seems that there is no time like the present.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford enjoys most types of IRL performance. His column appears weekly via email and online on Substack and Blogspot as well as Facebook, LinkedIn and X.