Lucia di Lammermoor – Intermission

JWise Photo of the Day

Intermission during Lucia di Lammermoor at AMC Theater Desert Ridge in Phoenix, Arizona

As not every weekend will see us traveling outside of Phoenix, we must find the things nearby that will lend new memories to our lives. Echoing out of May 1997 was our first encounter with Lucia di Lammermoor that arrived via a blue alien diva in the movie 5th Element. Twenty-five years later we are seeing a modern adaptation of Gaetano Donizetti’s and Salvadore Cammarano’s opera originally based on a book by Sir Walter Scott titled, The Bride of Lammermoor. The first part of this modern interpretation following Lucy Ashton (Lucia) and her struggles in 17th century Scotland first performed in 1835 in Italy has now been brought forward to America’s rustbelt in a broken impoverished community with a gangster problem.

Fire Shut Up In My Bones by jazz musician Terence Blanchard was my first encounter with truly contemporary opera and this was my second experience with opera seen through a setting that modern viewers might easier relate to. Just as with the previous simulcast from The Metropolitan Opera of Fire Shut Up In My Bones, I wanted to dislike the very idea of dragging me out of the history of what the original was portraying. Like that other opera, this version of Lucia di Lammermoor took a moment to find its way through my expectations.

Props to The Metropolitan Opera for switching things up and experimenting with greater diversity, mixed media, and betting on artists that might bring new fans into opera. This must surely be an epic undertaking worthy of the greatest operatic stories told upon their very stage. Our next visit to a Met simulcast is just 2 weeks away with a performance of Hamlet.

Heart of Afghanistan

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Heart of Afghanistan performing at the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, Arizona

Nearly at the last minute, Caroline noticed that ticket sales for Heart of Afghanistan performing at the Musical Instrument Museum were weak and asked me about going. In our efforts to support the kinds of music we’d like to see more of at the MIM, I went ahead and bought us a couple of tickets. The unfamiliar songs were reminiscent of pieces we’ve heard from India, Bollywood specifically, but as avenues into Afghan music are pretty much non-existent in America, aside from specifically tracking them down on the internet, neither Caroline nor I had any real familiarity with the music from Afghanistan.

The photos in the background behind the artists show Ahmad Zahir, the Elvis Presley of Afghanistan; the group performed a couple of his most loved songs. In the rows behind us sat people that felt talking would make a good accompaniment to what we were listening to coming from the stage. Sadly, we didn’t share their enthusiasm for narration and moved away from our ideal seats to the side. Two more songs into the evening’s entertainment and we had to bow out. Well at least we’d been able to mostly enjoy an hour of the concert but to the people sitting in the 5th row who couldn’t silence yourselves, you owe us the $98 we paid to be present.

[This concert was organized by American Voices, a non-profit dedicated to “enrich the lives of people of all ages and ethnic backgrounds through cross-cultural and educational engagement.” I hope that there will be continued collaboration between American Voices and the MIM, resulting in more concerts like this one. Caroline]

King Coffee Roastery

JWise Moments

Happy couple Nicky and Randy at King Coffee Roastery in Phoenix, Arizona

When the quality of life means nothing in the face of economic pressures to perform in the quest for greater and greater profits, the luxuries as perceived by those comfortable with a service will have to suffer as their favorite places of business give way to the corporatized franchises that pander to a banal population looking for conformity over something unique and different.

Ethan Cook at King Coffee Roastery in Phoenix, Arizona

Sure, tastes and attitudes change, but the sad disappearance of those places where friendships develop between customers and staff grows more and more common, or maybe I’m waxing nostalgic for something I’m imagining as I am failing to find those new mom & pop shops as I become fixated on the places I habitually return to.

As I take time to write this post in the closing days of the life of King Coffee Roastery on Union Hills Road in Phoenix, Arizona, I look fondly upon the relationships I’ve made with customers such as Nicki and Randy in the top photo, and I appreciate Mike, the owner of the shop, who gave people like Cross-Eyed Ethan an opportunity to overcome his sight handicap as he nearly always missed pouring various liquids into the cups they belonged but no one could say he wasn’t entertaining in some seriously strange way.

Dakotah Mein (barista) and Natasha Peralta (barista) at King Coffee Roastery in Phoenix, Arizona

The situation here a week ago was that the shop was going to close, and that was that. In the intervening days, a buyer happened upon the scene and while King Coffee in this location will cease to exist, something new will be taking its place. As far as the regulars are concerned, I’m sure that many of them will continue to frequent the shop as, obviously, it must have been convenient for them, aside from having a product they enjoyed. And maybe some faces will remain familiar as a couple of current employees might be able to stay on, such as Dakotah and Natasha.

Sadly, or maybe fortunately, Caroline and I will be traveling on King’s final day, so there will be no sad goodbyes, and now that we have learned about the transfer of ownership, there may not be much change of much at all regarding the idea of a coffee shop still operates in this space. Monday after our return could be an interesting moment when I meet the new owner and start finding out if the culture of my current favorite coffee shop will mostly remain the same or evolve. Mind you, evolution, in my view, is a good thing, while extinction is just bad news.

Caroline Wise at King Coffee Roastery in Phoenix, Arizona

After all the years of me coming to King, most often in solo mode, Caroline joined me in order to try a waffle that she had been admiring last week prior to our trip down to Ajo and Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. While I visit King to not only gab with other regulars but to try and get some writing in, Caroline enjoys the slow coffee at home on weekends, the quiet to read and knit, while somewhere in there, she carves out the time to call family in Germany so this is one of the rare days she hangs out with me at the coffee shop.

Each time I order a coffee here, I earn a King Coffee loyalty point; the count had grown to over 300 when the imminent closing of the store was first announced. Today, I’m down to about 150, and it’s unlikely I’ll be able to cash them all in. When I started amassing points, I was reluctant to trade 9 points for a free 10th cup because I wanted to support the operation. On occasion, I’d throw another customer a free drink, typically a student, someone who could use the free gift. While I’d prefer to just let the points drift into the universe, Mike, the owner, encouraged me and others who’d done the same to use them before they closed up shop or changed ownership.

Roaster Mike at King Coffee Roastery in Phoenix, Arizona

Meet Master Roaster Mike, the Boss. Over the years, as I’ve relied on Mike to act as my version of the bartender therapist, he’s indulged me patiently by listening to the stories I was bent on sharing with him that likely rarely made sense and simply distracted him from getting work done. Sure, I did my best to ignore his gestures and silent pleas for me to wrap things up, but anyone who’s known me understands that I’m pretty adept at ignoring social cues and am able to continue going on for many minutes, never returning to the point of my discussion before I’ve totally lost the person. What I’m most amazed about regarding Mike’s resilience was that he’d often appear almost interested, and this could be after he’s already powered through what looked to me like a solid dozen shots of coffee and maybe a couple of espressos. How he himself didn’t blabber on, overwhelming my conversation is beyond my comprehension, or is this truly my superpower where I’m able to ignore all that might compete with me to tell me their story?

So, what was special about King Coffee Roastery that other coffee shops are missing? Well, my answer is going to go full-corn: it was love. Oh my god John, seriously, you are going for that cliche? Sure, many people visiting an independent coffee shop will say it’s that they aren’t corporate, or the coffee has a distinctive taste, or whatever. For me, hot, bitter caffeinated liquid in a paper cup and some wifi might be some generic lifeblood, but what other places are missing is the evolving flow of love that moves through places where, for a time, synchronicity opens a space in the continuum, and the people who move in and out of the front door are carrying something that lends a special air to the environment. Life in these places isn’t simply transactional; it is life-affirming, and I’ll be sad that this one has to give way to financial motives that have no room for love.

Val and Larry Watkins of Phoenix, Arizona

Speaking of love, I’ll close this post with a photo of Val and Larry Watkins with whom I’ve shared many a conversation over the years. This happy couple of more than 31 years, while not daily regulars, drop in at least a few times a week. Hopefully, if not here in a new incarnation of King Coffee, we’ll all continue to meet somewhere nearby in the following days and weeks.

Desert Ironwood Pods

JWise Food

Beans

No need to travel somewhere exotic to see these, well other than to Caroline’s office where they are growing next to the TPC Scottsdale golf course.  You are looking at desert ironwood seed pods and I’m just learning that they are edible, albeit slightly toxic. You can guess what this means, I’ll be harvesting some of them later today and doing my best to boil off some of their toxins so we can try an old indigenous food that isn’t apparently eaten very often anymore. As I write this trying to convince myself that I’ve identified them correctly, I’m having doubts because the videos of people harvesting them are working with much smaller pods. I obviously don’t want to poison Caroline and I so I’m going to have to figure out how to find certainty regarding what species these come from.

Warm Leatherette

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Car accident in Phoenix, Arizona

It seems our neighborhood is becoming more attractive to people desiring a moment taken from the pages of Crash. Between a shooting of a police officer last week and a couple of traffic-stopping major accidents near our intersection, my confirmation bias is triggering a false sense of things going to shit around me. Of course, I don’t believe that for a second but how else should I try to milk some drama out of these events that are simply a normal part of life? Due to my title reference, I had to look up that old song that was part of my high school years back when Daniel Miller of Mute records fame released the song of that name by his group, The Normal, based on J.G. Ballard’s book. Well, I thought everyone knew that song and then I read that only 30,000 copies had been sold following its release, I’d imagine that back then that not many people had read Crash either. Anyway, I don’t mean to imply that the person in this car accident started masturbating in their cave of airbags hiding some peculiar sexual proclivities or that the paramedics who took the person away started in on a session of fornication en route to the hospital, it’s just that since I was 14 or 15 I’ve never been able to see an accident in the same way and keep Warm Leatherette out of my head. Life would probably have been a lot more normal had I listened to more Led Zeppelin and stuck with reading Stephen King.

A Note Regarding the Mundane

JWise Moments, Photo of the Day

Palo Verde tree in bloom Phoenix, Arizona

It’s allergy season, tax season, the approach of summer, and the space between those things and our travels. It’s easy to write about a trip somewhere as there’s a kind of excitement of going places, but what of these days when routine happens on a regular basis? Every day, we head out early in the morning, typically before 6:00 a.m., for a walk, and we suffer from the allergens that fill the air at this time of year. Every day, I think about doing the taxes, but I have until the 18th, so there is time. The air-conditioning is now on every day as temperatures have consistently been in the mid-90s here in Phoenix. It’ll likely stay this way, only much hotter, for the next four and a half months. Nearly every day, I find myself at a coffee shop at one point or other, typically first thing after dropping Caroline at her office.

I finished working out a two-week meal plan as we focus on the older things in our pantry and freezer that need to be eaten instead of thrown away; rarely do we ever throw food away. Writing about the once-a-week ritual of washing clothes is definitely of no interest for a blog post, but that kind of mundane thing is part of the mundane human maintenance usually glossed over. Gas is supposedly more expensive, and I guess it is, but that seems inconsequential in the scheme of things, considering I’m paying $45 a gallon for iced soy lattes at Starbucks in the afternoon on top of the $37-a-gallon Americanos I drink in the morning. But these details are just boring, maybe even hackneyed.

If I’m adequately busy and productive during the day, I’ll “reward” myself with mindless entertainment in the evening. This is either had by reading or trying to find something of some minor value on YouTube; the latter is typically a failure, with me plumbing the depths of stupidity and probably contributing to the rot accumulating somewhere in my brain that will show itself the older I get.

This quick burst of the mundane already needs to come to an end as here at 5:00 p.m.; it’s about time to go pick up Caroline and deal with the traffic of getting home. Our dinner of crockpot beans is finished, so there’s no real culinary excitement going on there unless you are a bean aficionado like we are, in which case we are dining on Lina Sisco’s Bird Egg beans cooked long and slow with bacon and onion. So, maybe not everything is exactly mundane today.