JACK BERNARD'S TRAVELS

On Monday I celebrated my 75^th birthday in NYC, so maybe this column should simply be called Surviving instead of Surviving Seattle. After all, my own father was dead when he was my age. I have to accept that, if everything goes perfectly, my life is about 75% complete.

Every day I am grateful for who I am, where I am, and how I got here. I didn’t choose to be born white, or healthy, or an American. But those three things put me in a tiny, tiny group that had a good chance at a good life on this planet at that time. When I get all puffed up about how cool I am and what a good life I’ve made for myself I try to remember that I had nothing to do with the most important factors that have given me a good life.

I’m grateful for so many things – my health, my smart, supportive and loving wife, my three successful children and their families, my wife’s children and especially for Lucie and Ben, my heartbreakingly beautiful step-grandchildren.

Along with the gifts and serendipity of birth, we do have to make decisions that direct our lives.  Some will be good ones, some bad ones, and sometimes, without making a decision at all, things happen that have cosmic consequences for our lives – births, deaths, wars, illnesses, accidents, lost jobs, and natural disasters. Who could ever have foreseen the murder of 20 small children and 6 of their teachers in Newtown, Connecticut? 26 young lives cut short by a crazed, mentally unstable killer. 26 young people will never see another birthday, wedding, or childbirth. So I remind myself, as I do about all the other good fortune in my life that I am really, really, lucky to be me.

Having said all that, the qualifier as I move into life’s next phase is that it is not really about survival as much as it is quality. What can I do to give myself a high quality experience for as long as possible? Here are my guidelines:

Love the people that matter – new friends, old friends, and family. Help them, comfort them, celebrate them and enjoy their company. Don’t waste time on people (including family) who treat you badly, even if they matter. It’s not your problem; it’s theirs. They will come around when their hearts open. Live your life with integrity and focus on the positive.

Don’t go to reunions. They are for old people who cluster together because the best parts of their lives are over. Don’t look back, look forward.

Go to happy hour at upscale bars. That’s where the young professionals with lots of juice hang out. It rubs off – and the conversations are interesting.

Hit the gym. Ride your bike. Walk to the store. Eat fresh, Stay fit. Get a massage. Everything feels better when you do.

Stay current. Keep abreast of fashion and pop culture trends as well as current events. Resist the temptation to dress like an old person – no high pockets or alpaca cardigans – but don’t dress like a dead teenager.

Treat each day as a work day. Get up. Get dressed (no jammies and bunny slippers). Drink a latte. Read the paper. Watch the morning news. Then – sit down and go to work – some kind of meaningful activity.

Check out the Weekend section of the local paper. Find a couple of events, films, plays, readings, or parties that sound interesting and get them on the calendar – even if you don’t know much about them. Surprise yourself. Be impulsive and creative. Many of them are free and will stretch your tiny mind.

Travel to interesting places. Fly Business Class if you can, but don’t let it deter you if you can’t. Exposure to other cultures will expand your vision and tolerance.

Work on a new (or old) skill you want to develop. I will never be a Hemingway, Clapton or Federer, but writing, tennis and playing the guitar give me enormous satisfaction and I will continue my relentless pursuit of improvement with all three.

Read, read, read – books are the gateway to freedom and wisdom.

Embrace the NOW. It’s all we have – especially considering a US Congress that ignores the national good in favor of its own bloviating self promotion.

This is about personal survival and the quality of life. In the meantime I have to Survive Seattle.

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In order to “survive Seattle” I started thinking about a trip to New York last June. It has been five years since Marilynn and I visited NY and we were excited to see what’s new in the museums – renovations at MOMA and the Guggenheim, newer art at the Met, and the always edgy shows at the Whitney. And then there was Broadway; who and what was playing that we couldn’t get in Seattle?

New York is always aiming for a cutting edge experience. Who’s new? Who’s hot? What tickets can’t you get? What restaurants are booked weeks in advance? The answers were surprising this year. There was nothing we couldn’t get tickets for and because we have no tolerance for $500 dinners where waiters treat customers like the peasants in Les Miserables we de-tuned the restaurant expectations. All in all we managed to visit six museums and attend five performances in seven days, and the two that stood out were the George Bellows exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum and the Lincoln Center revival of Clifford Odet’s play Golden Boy. The surprise here is that both Bellows and Odets are artists of the early to mid-twentieth century and both are still searingly contemporary in 2012.

The competition was stiff – Book of Mormon by the writers of South Park and the new David Mamet play, The Anarchist, starring Patty Lupone and Debra Winger on stage and Matisse, Picasso, and Andy Warhol at the Met, Guggenheim, and MOMA respectively. These guys are not lightweights, but it was no contest when it came to impact. Book of Mormon was catchy, irreverent, and funny. The Anarchist was serious, current, and well acted, but the first was not a patch on Angels in America and the latter was like an argument in an Ivy League faculty lounge.

The George Bellows show is astonishing. I knew almost nothing about him except the boxing pictures, but he was a prolific painter of urban life, war scenes reminiscent of Goya, family portraits, crucifixions, and landscapes. All of them pulsate with energy and dynamism. The war scenes, painted during WWI, are horrific. This is not to say that Matisse, Picasso, and Warhol are not memorable, but George Bellows, who died at age 42, was more memorable at the Met because he surprised us so much.

Clifford Odets’ play, coincidentally, had a similar impact. Like the Bellows paintings Odets uses boxing as a device to talk about other things. I was expecting a period piece with nostalgic appeal, but Golden Boy’s themes of violence, family, boxing, art, money, and love resonate with astonishing currency. Bart Sher, the former artistic director at Intiman Theater in Seattle, directed the play and the staging, acting and set design were masterful. On Saturday night we were at the Metropolitan Opera for a performance of Don Giovanni, which in spite of the incredible music and enormous production costs was leaden, boring, and visually disappointing. It was a good lesson in tempering expectations.

All in all this has been a wonderful trip. Seattle will never be able to compete with the New York museum and gallery scene, but we have seen four plays this year that stack up against anything we saw in New York. Golden Boy was outstanding, but Superior Donuts, the Tracy Letts play we saw at the Green Lake Bathhouse Theater was every bit as good and we were in and out for $25 each. Happy Holidays.

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This past week was Presidents Week for me. It started on Wednesday night when I heard Jon Meacham, the Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of Andrew Jackson, American Lion and Franklin and Winston, talk about his new biography of Thomas Jefferson at Town Hall in Seattle .

I’ve seen Meacham interviewed by Charlie Rose and as a panelist on the Sunday morning talk shows, but seeing and hearing him in person was an unexpected treat. He was funny, irreverent, erudite, and consummately in charge of his subject matter. On television he always seemed a bit wonk-ish and stiff, but up close he was confident, relaxed, and very engaged with his audience. He obviously liked and admired Jefferson but was equally clear that this was a deeply flawed individual. As the author of the Declaration of Independence he wrote that “all men are created equal,” but in his private life he was a slave owner who fathered several children by his slave, Sally Hemmings. For various reasons he could not summon the courage to advocate for their freedom and equality.

It is an interesting coincidence that Meacham’s biography appears at nearly the same time as another controversial biography of Jefferson by Henry Wiencek entitled Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and his Slaves. I haven’t read Wiencek’s book. Its scholarship is serious and acknowledged, but the New York Times reviewer and others have suggested that it is a hatchet job by “a man so blinded by his loathing of Thomas Jefferson that he can’t see contrary evidence right before his eyes.” Mr. Wiencek focuses on the obvious character flaw and lack of courage while failing to acknowledge the brilliant thinker and founder of the republic. Jefferson knew the difference between right and wrong. In the end he chose not to stand and fight to bring an end to the national disgrace.

Lincoln, on the other hand, was willing to risk his Presidency during the height of the Civil War to issue the Emancipation Proclamation and secure passage of the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution in order to bring an end to slavery. It was a remarkable act of courage and Steven Spielberg’s film, Lincoln, based on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals tells the story as if it were a fictional thriller. Daniel Day-Lewis will undoubtedly win an Oscar for his portrayal of Lincoln, but the rest of the cast, Tommy Lee Jones, David Strathairn, and Sally Fields as Lincoln’s tortured wife are also Oscar-worthy. I saw the film on Friday night and was immediately drawn into the complexity and differences between Lincoln and Jefferson.

It was an interesting juxtaposition that allowed me to encounter both Jefferson and Lincoln in the same week – Jefferson, whose principles and vision created the republic and Lincoln, whose principles and vision held it together when it was tested. Both were great men. There is an argument, and I accept it, that Jefferson could not have facilitated the end of slavery. He addressed the problem in the Virginia House of Burgesses but was not taken seriously, and one of the early drafts of the Declaration of Independence contained language about the end of slavery but it was stricken. His last mention of ending slavery was in the Ordinance of 1784 in which he proposed the abolition of slavery in the states created after 1800, but that provision was defeated by one vote when the Ordinance was approved. After 1784 there is no record of his support or advocacy for abolition. Had he tried it would probably have ended the American experiment before it had a chance to come together.

I love both books and movies, and this week has given me hope that serious art and literature is alive and well – in Seattle and across the US. At a time when Congress and the President seem to be fiddling while the country burns, Meacham assured me that in other even more trying times the republic endured. Keep the faith. We will get through this.

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Garrison Keillor has a great sketch about a teenage boy who believes that his parents picked up the wrong baby when they left the hospital. His parents are dull mid-Westerners with no interest in culture while he is a thwarted artist living in their stifling prison of normalcy.

I live a variation of that story but mine is climate related. Neither my parents nor my children love hot weather the way I do. If I could have my way I would live someplace where the temperature stayed between 80-90⁰ day in and day out. Seasons are overrated in my estimation. The last three years in Saigon were nearly ideal – sometimes a little too hot and sometimes a little too humid – but I’d rather be hot and sticky in flip flops and shorts than shivering in a down parka.

What’s this weather riff about? It’s about Surviving Seattle. I don’t do cold and wet very well. For half the year here I have to hesitate before I open the door. Even when it’s not raining the chill gets to me. I need relief. I’m not Seattle person by temperament, but I’ve made peace with it. Real Seattleites don’t mind the cold and wet. They don’t know the value of a good umbrella. I don’t think I ever saw one when I was growing up, and after a 40 year break I still don’t see many but every day I see commuters riding their bikes in the driving rain as if it were perfectly normal. I still get out to ride on sunny days this time of year but I’m swathed in fleece and ready to fly home or duck into a Starbucks at the hint of rain.

The good news is that there is life (for me) when the weather shifts to cold, dark, and wet. I belong to a full service gym with a pool, covered tennis and squash courts, state of the art exercise machines and classes from spinning and yoga to Pilates. And, when the body is satisfied there is always the life of the mind. I read the NY Times every morning by the fire and I buy way too many books because I love the way they feel and the worlds they transport me to. And, I go to the theater.

Seattle has a vibrant theater scene with both depth and variety. Minneapolis has the Guthrie and Chicago has Second City and Steppenwolf, but I think Seattle theater can go toe to toe with any city in America except New York.

In the last two months Marilynn and I have seen four plays in four different theaters. We’ve seen a virtuoso solo performance, Uncle Sam to Uncle Ho, about one man’s Vietnamese immigrant experience, a polished but troubling musical about the Pullman Company’s porters called Pullman Porter Blues, an ambitious telling of the Asian myth of Ramayana, and Superior Donuts, a play by Tracy Letts, the author of the Tony Award winning August: Osage County and one of the leads in Broadway’s current remake of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Pretty good stuff for soggy old Seattle. And, it’s good value.

Marilynn and I are going to New York in a couple of weeks. We’re all amped up to see the museums, Christmas decorations, some live theater, and to chow down on a real Reuben and some real bagels. But, there’s definitely a price difference. I just spent $1100 online for tickets to a musical, The Book of Mormon, a play, The Anarchist, and an opera at the Met, Don Giovanni. The four Seattle plays came to roughly $300.

I’m not a theater critic, but I was knocked out by the quality of the Seattle performances, especially Superior Donuts. I like small independent films and plays with a handful of actors who tell a story that holds my attention for two hours. In those two hours I get taken to another place by people and situations that are not part of my daily life. The story and the characters talk to me about universal themes and situations. I aspire to that in my own writing but I have a long way to go and much to learn. I’m hoping for a short winter but there are consolations in learning to survive Seattle. I might even learn something new.

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What do baseball and opera have in common? They are both better viewed in HD than at the ballpark or in the opera house.

I grew up on baseball and loved going to games as a kid, but that was before flat screens and High Definition TV. Now if I go to a game it is really to be part of the ritual not to “see” it. If I want to “see” the game I do it in front of my 42″ flat screen where I can see the pimples on the pitcher’s nose. But, truth to tell, I hardly watch baseball anymore. I might if Seattle had a decent team but it doesn’t, and I’ve totally lost interest.

So why do I suddenly like opera? Is it that the Mariners suckage is so devastating that I would rather see an opera? Is it that the pain associated is so much less than watching the Mariners flounder? It’s not really that simple, although I think I’d rather eat a plate full of brussel sprouts than watch the home team stumble around Safeco Field in their current incarnation. I know it sounds goofy. I know almost nothing about opera. I can name a few famous singers and I know the names of a dozen or so operas. Ignorance alone has stood in the way of my spending nearly $100 to pay for a live performance. It’s not that I haven’t liked the operas I’ve seen, but those performances were primarily lucky happenstance. When I was flying for Pan Am I managed to see Tosca performed on a lovely summer night at the Baths of Caracalla in Rome and La Boheme in the wonderfully baroque opera house in Rome. I was lucky enough to hear Pavarotti in Aida at Covent Garden and later Marilynn and I saw Carmen on the Boston Commons. Still, I didn’t really know enough about opera to appreciate these opportunities. BUT NOW – I’m hooked. It’s all about High Definition broadcasts of live performances from the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. They are sensational.

For $22 I go to a local Cineplex on Saturday morning, sit in a comfortable seat, and watch the world’s greatest singers perform live opera with Dolby sound from the Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center. Peter Gelb, the Met’s General Manager, initiated the live HD performances in 2006. It was a bold strategy in audience and revenue development, and it was far from a sure thing. It has turned out to be a huge success and has increase both audience and revenue for the Met. The American opera goer is overwhelmingly old. It’s rare, even now with the HD performances to see anyone in the theater under 50. But, I think it will happen. It is mind blowing to experience on the huge screen. Each performance involves something like 20 cameras shooting simultaneously, so there are long shots, close ups, panoramic views and shots of the orchestra.

This year, the 2012-2013 season, there are 17 live performances scheduled in theaters nationwide. I’ve seen three (photos above) – The Tempest – a modern Thomas Ades adaptation of Shakespeare’s play, Otello – Verdi’s Shakespeare adaptation with Renee Fleming and Johan Botha, and L’Elisir d’Amore – by Donizetti directed by Seattle’s Bartlett Sher with Anna Netrebko in the lead role.

I wish the Mariners good luck, but for now I’d rather watch the amazing spectacle and major league talent that is the Metropolitan Opera in HD. It’s always good to find new interests. So far I’m loving this one – maybe you will too.

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