A Wad of Culture

This afternoon we attended the Ballet. ! The Nutcracker, specifically, choreographed by George Ballanchine and staged by a welter of performance groups and sponsoring organizations. I don't know who is ultimately responsible for this performance, but the Anchorage Concert Association, the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra, the Alaska Dance Theatre and the Oregon Ballet Theatre are all somehow involved.
I should start by saying that I have never been to a ballet before and was mainly curious, especially about this one as it is a cultural signifier. So this was by way of an experiment for both me and Art.
The Performing Arts Center, conveniently located downtown, is a lovely building, well-suited for its purpose and pleasant inside as well. Also, the facade has a nifty light-show kind of thing going on around the top which I quite like when I'm outside it, so I was well-disposed toward the building even before I went inside. It was snowing like all hell today, so we left early and got there about an hour before the auditorium doors opened. This was good because it gave us a chance to survey the crowd for weirdness, which is a highly rewarding activity in these parts. I had been told that you do not have to dress up for cultural events in Anchorage, and this is very true. It is equally true that you can do so if you want. Some people were very dressed up indeed, and some people were quite casual - to the point of sweatpants and flannel shirts. Some people compromised by wearing dress clothes and snow boots. This was the route I took. It had the effect of making me feel dressy, but with warm dry feet. The lady who sat next to Art wore jeans and a sweater and knitted during the show.
The sets and staging were quite good and the special effects were well done, I thought. The first act was mostly pretty slow, and the "dancing" mainly consisted of little kids running from side to side of the stage. They did fine, but still, it was little kids running around. One adult male dancer showed up for a brief appearance, causing my first surprise of the show.
Those of you who have seen a ballet probably know what I am talking about, but for those of you who don't... The male dancers need longer jackets, or possibly some padding, or something of that nature. Not much is left to the imagination, if you get my drift. To be brutally specific, I am fairly sure I could see the one guy's eurethra. It is true they are wearing tights, but their personal regions are not concealed by much more than the equivalent of a coat of paint. It is true that I am an adult and did not see anything that surprised me, but on the other hand, seeing it in this particular context surprised me a great deal. The knitting lady next to Art kept putting down her needles and saying "Oh my." Art kept saying "Package for you!" and I had to resist the urge to cover the eyes of every kid in my vicinity. "Why not just not look?" a sensible person would ask. Can't be done, is why. Can. Not. Be. Done. They're just...there, you know? Considering that this is a show for which I would estimate 50% of the audience is tiny little girls in their party dresses and snow boots, I think a bit more clothing in the shorts region might be in order for the guys. That's all I'm saying.
Anyway, things picked up a bit in the second act, with mostly grown-ups dancing, and most of the dancers being women, who had all their personal regions concealed. I don't know enough about ballet to describe what exactly was going on, but there was a lot of impressive leaping and some difficult-looking tiptoe-work. All in all, I quite enjoyed it, and Art said it was not that bad.
Then we finished off our afternoon of culture with dinner at Humpy's, about which more in the Eating Alaska blog. [Art's Commentary: The plot of The Nutcracker can be summed up thus; A small girl's fantasy about romance, war and candy] [ Also, we got about a foot of snow w/o the forecast ever being more than 'snow-shower'. Back in PA, we might not get a foot in a whole winter]

Getting Anchorage Lit

Friday night we attended Anchorage's Christmas Tree Lighting event. It started off slowly, but built into a fever dream weirdness event, as though the planners had been slowly working their way through a bottle of absinthe or laudanum, or some other Romantic-era crazy juice.

As the crowd gathered, The Salvation Army handed out free hot chocolate and cookies, and AT&T (which was sponsoring the event) handed out swag and propaganda. We got a pretty calendar and a key chain! Folks in Xmas tree hats wandered around handing out the cookies. Also, some personnel dressed as random Holiday characters (drummer boys, Dickensian Moms, Sugar-plum Fairy girls, etc) handed out candy canes. Several of the girls wore long underwear instead of tights under their fairy skirts, which is maybe a little tacky, but eminently sensible. Also working the crowd were several girls wearing Miss Alaska banners and crowns - they were handing out programs. There was no indication if they were Miss Alaskas from year past, or what. Art speculated that maybe they have started allotting Miss America contestants by square footage, kind of like you get House representatives by population. If so, we get a lot of shots at it. The Miss Alaskas were dressed with varying levels of formality, with the least formal wearing snow boots, jeans, a jackets, her sash and crown, and a metric ton of makeup. The most formal wore sash and crown, mt of makeup, high heels and sparkly formal getup. Another interesting feature of the crowd was how many people were stupidly dressed - and I don't mean fashion-wise. I mean no jackets in 10 degree weather. I mean strappy sandals over bare feet in about 6 inches of snow. Art and I started nudging each other every time one of these people shivered by, and we were soon joined by the family on our right, who also enjoyed pointing out all the idiots.

The event itself started out pretty slow, with various guys introducing other guys, all of them congratulating each other on civic achievements. It was about this time that I noticed something about Anchorage crowds - when it is time to applaud, many people instead choose to go "Woooooo!" as though Aerosmith had suddenly turned up. Possibly because if you clap with gloves on it doesn't make much sound, and it is too cold to take off your glove.

Anyway, eventually they got to the entertainment. First up was a grade school chorus, who sang some Christmas songs and accompanied themselves with grade school percussion in the form of maracas. These were necessary to do some salsa versions of old standards. Because Alaska has a long tradition of salsa Christmas songs. I guess. Anyway, the kids were cute and functioned on appropriate grade level. Next, a very brave Jr High girl got up and sang some pop versions of a few songs. Why she did this I have no idea - possibly it was a form of community service. She did fine as well.

Then things got weird. A drama group from a local high school ( I can feel your eyes rolling from here, as were mine) staged The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. The dramatis personnae were:

• a quartet of Readers, who were evidently the good kids and therefore did not have to dress up in costumes


• The Tree, played by a girl in a tree costume (Why? I have no idea)


• Cindy Lou Who, played by a girl in pajamas and deely-bobbers


• Max, played by a girl in a big poufy dog costume, and


• The Grinch, played by a kid in normal clothes but painted all green, as though he was the Incredible Hulk in chillin' mode, wearing sweat pants and sneakers and headed out to the mall.

The action of the play consisted mostly of the Readers reading and the other kids miming the actions the Readers were reading about. Occasionally though, the action would stop for the kids to sing one of the songs from the cartoon version of the story.

Finally, at very long last, Santa and a trophy elf-wife came down Candy-Cane Lane! Their sleigh was pulled by a team of actual reindeer, which were being wrangled by a group of Sergeants from the local Army base, Fort Richardson. The Sergeants were part of an official group, the name of which I did not catch.

(I should mention that this event was semi-connected to a party the Mayor's wife had given for military families, which may have been why the sergeants got roped into this.) Anyway, the Sergeants gave did a great job, and got a nice round of whoops.

Then, very finally, after a countdown, Santa pressed the button, and the tree was lit. It was a weird but fun kind of time.

Welcome to the Christmoose Season!

We started our Thanksgiving weekend on a pretty relaxed note. No gatherings or big meals - just a festival of snacks and also hanging around time. We were hoping to find a Godzilla or Twilight Zone marathon on tv to waste all our time on, but no luck. So we wound up watching all of season 4 of The Office via Netflix on demand, which was entertaining. We also did some house stuff, but not too much, as did not want to strain ourselves.
Friday started off slow as well. After getting up at the crack of dawn (OK, 10:30) as we did some more house stuff, but in a gradual way, so as not to strain ourselves. As we were going downtown anyway for a civic event in the evening, we decided to go a couple of hours early and do some shopping. We did not even think about the fact that this technically made us "Black Friday" shoppers, as we did not have the Black Friday spirit when we set out. It did not dawn on me until we were entering the downtown area that we were driving into a potential maelstrom of chaos and despair. However, we still easily got a spot in the parking deck, although we were forced to go to an upper deck. We took the opportunity to have lunch at a local institution, the White Spot, for more of which see my food blog. Then we hit the Mall, bracing ourselves for the onslought.
It was not that bad. It was maybe a little more crowded than usual, but there were none of the swirling, hate-filled crowds you see on Black Friday newscasts. Anyway, we did what shopping we could in the mall, then went to the Museum, which was holding a craft show and book expo.
Craft shows in Museums are serious affairs, with serious handmade usuable-art-style objects. The arty craft show could not fill our remaining shopping needs, so we went the upper level, which was holding the Read Alaska! book expo and meet-the-author event. The books were either kids' books about Ollie the Otter and Shishlak the Seal and that sort of thing, or grim nonfiction. I am generally a non-fiction reader, but these were all first person narratives about bear-attack survival or histories of B-17's in Alaska or a survey of snowmachining paths in the Kenai Peninsula. There was also a bare smattering of Alaska based mystery novels. I might have even wanted some of these books, but each table had a desparate-eyed author standing there, pushing their books at everyone. Let me offer a word of advice to any small-press authors out there. Don't sell your book in person! You will never be able to summon the detachment necessary to let people examine your book without feeling uncomfortable. Under these circumstances, a potential buyer cannot possibly pick up your book and give it an honest assessment. You are looking right at them. They get very uncomfortable. And I am not the only one who feels this way. Art and I were part of a swiftly moving stream of people who ran the author gauntlet, all of us keeping three rules in mind:1) never make eye contact, 2) never stop moving, and 3) do not talk about Fight Club. I broke the eye-contact rule (this has always been a tough one for me, which is why crazy people always talk to me out of the thousands of people available on any given street), and had to be rescued from the author, who was assailing me with her sales pitch. "It sounds really interesting" Art said, carefully not looking into her eyes "We are taking your card so we remember to come back for a copy." Then he grabbed my arm and hustled me away. I feel a first person author-harassment survival book coming on.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Our best wishes to everyone for a Happy Thanksgiving!

Card Games

It's Christmas Card time! (I like to get it out of the way early.) Christmas card time is never easy, but - like hitting yourself with a hammer - it feels so good when it's over.
The first dilemma of Xmas Card Time is who we're going to send cards to. Family, of course. But who else? Neighbors? Previous neighbors from the last house? What about the house before that? Coworkers? Former coworkers? People you haven't talked to in years but for whom you still retain generally positive feelings? As is generally the case, that works itself out in particulars as opposed to the general categories. This is more complicated for me than it probably should be - I'd like to like everyone, but not everyone is likable.
The second dilemma is whether or not to write and include a newsletter. I generally don't. Anybody who actually cares what is going on in my life already knows, and why waste the time and energy on the others? On the other hand, this has been an eventful year. Really, really eventful. Again, though, everyone who cares already knows this, as well as quite few people who don't. I generally enjoy other people's, but that doesn't mean they'd enjoy mine. On the balance, we probably won't do a newsletter.
Third and most fraught, picking out cards. For years now, I have been hampered in card choosing by the variety of charities who send us their packets of hideous cards. Right around the beginning of November, just when I am starting to shop around a bit and plan what kind of cards I would like to buy, we get roughly a metric ton of cards in the mail. This would be fine if they were even a little attractive, but sadly they are not. They are always smarmy, featuring winsome children and/or winsome woodland creatures, or country-style snowpersons, or some other denizen of Darlingland. I hate them with a fiery passion, yet I am compelled to use them. How can I justify wasting good money on cards when these perfectly good ones are right here? I can't, so I am stuck handing the wretched things out. Why not give them to old folks homes or some other organization that could use them, a reasonable person would ask. Because they don't want them either, is why. I tried palming them off, and could not find a taker. I suppose I could throw them away, but decades of environmental awareness training will not let me do this either. This year I was extra-excited by the possibilities, as we had moved and I believed the charities would not find us in time. I was wrong.
Fourth, timing. I generally like to get them signed and addressed and in the mail on Thanksgiving weekend. This gets it comfortably out of the way, and also lets me be first in something. This year I was punked by my mother-in-law, who sent us hers last week just to get me. Next year she gets hers by Halloween! My first impulse was to send her 2009 card right after New Years' Eve, but that is premature. Halloween should do fine - also this gives us room to move if the early-card-sending war escalates. This year I got most of them addressed this weekend, and am sending them out Monday. My seasonal instinct is all messed up by the short days. Also, the mail will take probably an extra week, so from the recipients' perspective, not much will have changed. They will still get a smarmy, newsletter-free card shortly after Thanksgiving. Enjoy!

Ted Stevens

If you have been following AK politics recently, the continuing drama of Ted Stevens cannot have escaped your attention. I don't know how visible all of this has been to Outsiders ( what Alaskans call everyone else, particularly in the US, but also in the whole rest of the world), but it has been constantly in the public view here.
I don't know enough about the circumstances to be able to guess whether the charges against him were probably true or probably false, but I do know this. Everyone with even the slightest sense of proportion - and I do mean everyone - agrees that he has done a great deal for Alaska. There is a reason why, when you fly into Anchorage, the Ted Stevens International Airport is where you will land. Inumerable hospitals, schools, and public institutions exist because of his ability to bring home the bacon, and he is well-loved for it. Old people love him, young people love him, cats love him. Extreme left Democrats I work with love the man.
Anyway, he has conceded his Senate race to Mark Begich, now serving as Anchorage's mayor. (Current speculation is that people voted for Begich to get him the hell away from Anchorage.) Prior to the current excitement, he (Stevens) has had quite an interesting life. I urge interested parties to visit http://www.adn.com to view their pictorial history of his life and career. It starts with his service as a Flying Tiger in China during WWII, continues on through the years to today. Say what you will about the man, anyone whose political career can survive the shame of 70's hair like that will be back.

Dark and cold

The year is winding down, now, but it sure is going quick! Although it is cold and the days are short, I can't quite believe we are only a week out from Thanksgiving and a month from Christmas.
The sun rose today at 9:17 am and set at 4:13 pm - it's surprising how quickly you get used to it. For one thing, it's giving me the chance to see sunrises, which I don't get up early enough to see if I can help it!
The cold is getting sharper as well - yesterday when we went out, the trees were coated with a sparking white coat of frost. It stayed frosted all through today, and is quite pretty, especially against the dark sky. Bright spots wherever I look!

Darkness...Overcoming me!

Or maybe not.
As advertised, the days are considerably darker now, as we are rapidly approaching the shortest day of the year. (OK, it's a month off, but it sure seems close now.) The sun rose this morning at 9:07 a.m. and is setting as I write this at 4:30 p.m. This has some interesting emotional effects. Most notably, short days like this are the source of SAD (seasonal affective disorder) which makes people go crazy and kill themselves. In order to combat this, full spectrum lights are helpful, as well as some other measures. Starting about a month ago, we started seeing signs all over the place advertising "We have SAD lights!" In the day or two before I put two and two together, I kept thinking "Why would anyone want sad lights? What would make them sad? Do they have little frowny faces on them or something?" Then the light (Ha!) went on.
It is a bit weird in some ways. The department I work in has one big office with great big windows, and I get to work at 8 while it is still very dark, and it is a couple of hours until we have daylight. In some ways this is nice - the other morning a beautiful full moon was visible from our window all morning. Then after you work for a while, it starts getting dark, which makes you start sort of winding down for the day. Then you realize it's around 3:30. Sigh.
People at work are constantly giving me little hints on Dealing with the Darkness. I expect to be shown an after-school-special on the subject any day now. I am really fine with it, personally. It actually makes the inside seem so much cosier to me. I have always liked winter, and it's kind of nice to drink a cup of tea or hot chocolate and look out the window - you can actually see how cold it is outside - it's like the air is sharp or something. Everyone I say this to, however, says "Just wait until February! Then you won't like it!" I think I still will, but we'll see.
From the scads of advice Art and I have been given, here are the ones that seem reasonable:

• Don't drink when you are depressed, but go ahead and have a drink if you are in a good mood.
• Take up an outdoor sport such as cross-country skiing or snowshoeing.
• Get out and socialize, don't just hang around your house or you will wind up divorced.

We are currently considering how to apply this advice to our daily lives. I think I'll start with #1.

The Little Museums That Could - Sort Of

This past weekend we went to two more of Anchorage's fine meccas of entertainment - The Anchorage Museum of Natural History, and the Alaska Aviation Heritage Museum. I will just go ahead and get the funnier one out of the way.

The Natural History museum reminded me of nothing so much as an old-school scout house. Readers of a certain age (and possibly from the northeast) will know exactly what I mean. The place was kind of jury-rigged together out of plywood and duct tape, the walls festooned with art that was clearly some Jr. High class's art/science Comes Alive! project.

...like this. I swear this is hanging on their wall. I could not ascertain from the display when the Saurians were supposed to have settled in the greater Anchorage area, but judging from the moons, they were either here for many, many months, or they arrived by some sort of swirly time tunnel.

No, seriously. Most of their displays were more like this...

A lot of the labels were misspelled, and many of them were handwritten on torn-up squares of notebook paper. To return to my earlier scout-house analogy, there were the cases of dusty bones, a display of minerals, posters illustrating things like "Insects of Alaska", and the persistent, mysterious smell of mildewed canvas. Their mission was supposed to have been illustrating Alaska's natural history, which in some instances they did very well. For example, their models of volcanos and maps of the Pacific's Ring of Fire were pretty well done. However, there was a considerable amount of mission creep-most of it not for the better. Some examples of this problem include our old friends the Reptoids and a section of things concerning Haunted Alaska, which by anyone's definition is more the Unnatural history of Alaska. I found it deeply charming, but not really a credible source of Natural History information. All in all, this would be a great place to take impressionable young children you would like to confuse or upset - a niece or nephew, perhaps. Another bonus is that things are just sort of sitting out on display with little context or information, so you can amuse yourself by making up extravagant lies about them!

...like this: It is a well-known fact that bears steal money from banks and eat crackers from tins.

It is a bargain at $5 for adult entry, so it has that going for it as well.

Just Plane Folks
By contrast, the Alaska Aviation Heritage Museum is actually pretty good. It is a bit garage band-y as well, but they are doing well for a plucky underdog style establishment. Alaska does have quite a bit of aviation heritage, so there is that going for it as well. Quite a lot of interior and otherwise rural Alaska can be reached only by small planes (or foot or dogsled-you choose!), and sometimes only by float planes. So quite a lot of people and items make their way around the state by air.

Alaska being as independent as it is, quite a lot of colorful folk tend to make their way here - usually the exact same kind of people who wind up flying for a living. Also, there has been a lot of military aviation based out of Alaska, including a few units with extremely comical unit patches. So that made me very happy indeed.

Here is an inevitable diorama - this time of a crashed plane. [Art's commentary: In a happy coincidence, an awful lot of Alaska's aviation history involves crashed planes! This is not the only crashed-plane diorama.]

Information is well laid out, though, and in addition to informational placards, pictures and some memorabilia items, the place is absolutely rife with salvaged old planes.

...some of which make you appreciate how crazy and/or brave the people who flew these things really were. This picture is from one of the hangar/worksheds out back, where restoration work is ongoing on a number of planes. You are allowed to just sort of poke around, which is nice. Also, it was not crowded, and I have the impression it never really is. When we went into the one shed where serious restoration work was going on, one of the volunteers and his dog took us around a bit and showed us some neat stuff about the planes there.

For instance, this 737, donated by Alaska Airlines, has some modifications to it so that it can land on dirt runways, which is so it can go to some of the bigger interior villages! We would not have seen the modifications without his help, so it was nice to get some guidance. [Art's Commentary: The picture on the tail is a native guy in a hood and NOT Bob Marley, as I had previously thought]

If you are at all alive to the romance of aviation, particularly in its older, wilder days, the Alaska Aviation Heritage Museum is for you.

Whew!

Glad that's over! I refer, of course, to the recent election. At last! Our long national nightmare (the protracted campaign) has ended. So, no matter if your party won or lost, as least we can all draw together as a nation, and look forward to almost three blessed years of no presidential campaigning.
I personally was really hoping up until the end that my boy Bob Barr would pull it out, but alas, no. Next time!
But anyway, on to my actual subject. Voting here in Alaska was an interesting event in a lot of ways. And then of course extremely mundane in others.
First, thanks to the news media being completely out of control, in past years they were calling the election sometimes by noon east coast time. So we were assuming that CNN would have decided for us who the next president would be before we here in Alaska (4 hours behind east coast time) were even awake. But that didn't happen. Possibly a more alert person knows why they were restraining themselves this year, but it was a welcome change. It was noontime Alaska time before they started calling it. So it was different on a national scale, but not so much for me personally.
Second, they give you an "I Voted" sticker, which is quite pretty. We saved ours for the scrapbook :) . We never got stickers in Pennsylvania.
Third, the method of voting, which I am aware is quite different everywhere you go. We just filled in dots on paper ballots with #2 pencils. This was a little primitive, but pretty foolproof. We always used to laugh about the old ballot machines in Pa, which were clunky old mechanical ones. I have a sneaking fondness for them, though, and seriously considered buying one when they (PA state) got rid of them (the voting machines) to usher in the new touchscreen voting machines. Art talked me down from this purchase plan, however, which was probably a good thing. It would have been absolute hell to move, I can tell you that much.
Also, the big voting center is in the basement of the building where Art works, and they were packed with people voting early for a few weeks before the election. Alaska is one of the states that allows early voting at a few select locations for quite a while before the actual election day. I guess this makes sense - a lot of people live in the rural villages and don't come to town too often, so it makes sense that they vote when they can. (I could be wrong about this - Alaskans may just like to get it over with and out of the way.) I gather there are a few other states that allow this as well, but it was news to me.
Other than that though, it was any old election day. TV and radio pundits making earnest pronouncements, people at work going on about their side and speculating about how if the other side won the entire country was going straight to hell. Then when you actually go to vote, you stand in line, then there's the search for your name by the bored voting station volunteers, the few minutes of actual voting, and then the brief rush of virtuous pride when you have done your civic duty. And then there's the sticker.

Halloween - Alaska Style

Halloween is my favorite holiday by far, so I was very glad in early September when I saw all the spooky stuff appearing in the stores. I know a lot of places don't really do Halloween in any serious way - in many ways it is an east coast thing. And I don't know if they do much in the villages, but Anchorage certainly likes the holiday.

As you might expect, there is not as much outdoor stuff, but there was a reasonable sprinkling of haunted attractions indoor in empty mall stores and so on. It is hard to enjoy a hayride or cornmaze in 20 degree weather. If people get turned around and stay too long, later visitors will see some actual gruesomeness! Kids here do actual trick-or-treating, but it is in shorter bursts than in PA. People at work were talking about their kids costumes - joking about dressing them up as skiers or Michelin men, which does not seem like a bad idea. And as always, there are Alaska twists - you have to watch what you do with your jack-o-lantern. Moose find pumpkins tasty, and it is not unknown to find moose standing on your porch eating them. The paper had an article last week advising people, once Halloween is over, to put their pumpkins in areas away from roads and travelled areas for moose to enjoy!