Monday, September 11, 2006

 
Strange things are happening to gas prices in the area. Generally, prices up near Fritz are a couple of cents to a nickel lower than they are in Boston. But in the days just before Labor Day weekend, Boston prices went into free-fall, which they never do BEFORE a big holiday, whereas they eased only very slightly in New Hampshire. Boston prices bottomed out briefly at around $2.59 in my neighborhood and have since dropped to $2.49 at my local station.

But when I got off Route 93 in Derry, NH Saturday afternoon on my way to Fritz's, I saw gas prices at two of the six stations by the exit that I couldn't believe: $2.29 a gallon. There was a big gap up to $2.65 for the medium grade. Sunday as I headed back down to Boston, the price for regular had dropped to $2.25 and was offered at three of the stations. Plus and Extra remained forty to sixty cents a gallon higher.

Finding gas so reduced in price was icing on the cake of a very nice day. The host of the Body electric reunion in Winchester had planted cedars around the entire rear portion of his property so there was complete privacy. When I arrived, naked sun bathing and swimming was the order of the day. I spent a very pleasant hour and a half with the guys before continuing my trip and Joining Fritz and one of the teachers for dinner that included my husband's superb swordfish, excellent home made New England succotash, and enough wine to get us all just about completely shit-faced.

This morning as I drove to work, the radio stations were focused almost across the board on the 9/11 memorial at Ground Zero in New York City. Part of the ceremony involved widows, widowers, and the surviving partners of those killed, reading the names of the dead. They came in pairs and alternated reading a group of names, the last name each read being their own lost loved one about whom they said a few personal words. In the part of the ceremony WBZ radio broadcast before cutting away to coverage of the rest of the day's remembrances, the readers were all women and they were all remembering husbands.

I allowed myself to wonder if any of the gay men or lesbians among the bereaved were going to be included and allowed to acknowledge the loss of their same-sex partners. I'm sure there'll be coverage of that one way or the other in the various gay print media, because there was bitter protest five years ago about same-sex partners originally being excluded from the financial compensation packages and other considerations. Eventually cooler and fairer heads prevailed, but not before a lot of anger and hurt had been vented.

However, the answer to my question was answered affirmatively when I got home tonight on Boston's six o'clock TV news. At the State House on Beacon Hill, the first widower WBZ-TV interviewed was a man who'd lost his partner on the first plane to strike the World Trade Center. As he spoke a photo of the man he had lost was superimposed over the screen, and then the coverage went on to other things. Massachusetts makes me so proud--sometimes; in the last election for governor, we DID vote in Mitt Romney after all. Not me personally, please note, but the state as a whole. And this state has been quite well punished for its sin.

 The concert last night went very well. Soprano Joanna Porackova was in fine form and has to have been strong as an ox. As I mentioned previously, the program was lengthy and very challenging. However, she aced it, her voice getting stronger and more brilliant as the evening progressed. My little essays between her selections went well. Part of my job was also to deliver a piece on the harmonic structure of Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde" that had been written by the evening's pianist. It was quite technica, included a lengthy digression to explain the Phrygian Mode in music that required quoting a lot of German.

I'm very secure in my French and Italian pronunciation because both languages were in my family and I studied both in school. I can just get by in simple German although I have only the basics of its pronunciation. But it didn't help when a group of about six people, all of them native German speakers, came in and sat down in the first row directly in front of where my lecturn was set up and stared at me expectantly when I took the stage. I figured the best thing I could do was to disarm criticism immediately and, as charemingly as possible, begged the audience's indulgence for my German pronunciation.

In the end, it all went well. To make it all the more pleasant, I had long overdue surprise reunions with a Boston-area director with whom I studied at Brandeis University's graduate theater program, and with one of the area's leading flute players whom I hadn't seen in years.

# posted by Will @ Monday, September 11, 2006
Comments:
Ciao Will, ecco 2 links probabilmente interessanti per te:

http://www.angelfire.com/fl3/uraniamanuscripts/sept11.html

when you have got the website, go to : Return to September 11 ( on the left )>>> here is also a site in English ...


http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/storiagay/

Un caro saluto a Fritz e a te,

Hans
# posted by Blogger castor : 2:37 AM
 
I was telling Chris the other day that gas prices here - though high - are a bargain. The day we left Key West to come here, I paid $3.34 a gallon on the way out.
# posted by Blogger Steve : 6:53 AM
 
I never expected prices to make it down as far as they have fallen. I thought for sure they would level out and stay moderately high. I just can't believe this is happening.
# posted by Blogger The Persian : 12:48 PM
 
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