Our flight to LA was delayed about 90 minutes - they said something about a crew member on his way. Then later that his replacement would be there soon. Arriving at 5:50 am is not great any way, so it didn't matter too much. Last month we saw the first light of dawn as we got the bus station, just going on 7 am. But this time, we were still in the plane. But I did see the first glow of dawn through a window across the aisle.
Then we made the big arc to the left as we headed toward downtown LA before looping back around to land back near the coast. Only today everything was hidden by thick low clouds.
Then finally we got some glimpses through the fuzzy suspended moisture.
That's the Harbor Freeway (sorry, everyone uses numbers these days, but to me it's still the Harbor Freeway) looking south, with the coliseum and exposition park on the bottom right. The University of Southern California (USC) campus would be under us.
Below, we are on the ground, sun to the east, overpowering the cloud cover. There were some drops on the bus windshield, and the streets had a wet sheen, but walking the last mile was a good break from all that airplane time. And I was glad my foot was up to it. The heel has been on an off lately.
When we got to my mom's, the tv news was covering the impending rain at tonight's Oscar celebration as if it were something important. They should spend so much time explaining important issues.
Oh, yeah. It was mid 30s and raining when we left Anchorage last night. My fanaticism about keeping our driveway clear of snow and ice paid off. Our neighbor's similar south sloping driveway was a dangerously slick patch of ice.
The University of Alaska Board of Regents are the policy body for the University. They make the final decisions at the policy level - including hiring the president and approving the budget. I've written about the university and the regents from time to time and that's made me realize the board needs to be more visible to the people of Alaska.
So I went to Friday's board meeting at UAA. I haven't been to a board meeting - well, it's been so long that I don't remember at all. So I wasn't quite sure what to expect. It was relatively easy. I knew a couple of key people there who could tell me what was happening. I got to talk to three of the regents during breaks, and have a video tape of one (below).
There is lots of information (and then again, in some cases, not so much) online at the board's webpages. For instance:
A members page that links to bios of each of the regents. I've covered the previous board here and the four new members here.
Board of Regents Annual Retreat January 22-23, 2014 Anchorage, Alaska
SUMMARY OF ACTION
1. Approval of Bargaining Unit Agreement between the University of Alaska and United Academics AAUP-AFT/AFL-CIO (UNAC)
PASSED "The Board of Regents approves the collective bargaining agreement between the University of Alaska and United Academics AAUP-AFT/AFL-CIO (UNAC) for the term of January 1, 2014 through December 31, 2016. This motion is effective January 23, 2014."
That's it.
The Official Minutes tend to add a little more - like who made the motion and who seconded it and who voted yes and who voted no and the language of what was passed. It's focused mostly on technical details, and it's light on substance. There's no sense of the discussion before the vote and how the discussion went. You'd be hard pressed to understand the reasons for and against any issue. The minutes spends more words on how they went in and out of executive session, but doesn't explain the subject of the executive session, which seems to be counter to the Alaska Administrative Procedures Act requirements for Executive Session which says:
"The motion must state specifically what will be discussed and must be approved by a majority vote. The motion must contain enough detail that the public (and if necessary a court) will be informed of exactly why the executive session is appropriate, without defeating the purpose of going into executive session. Only the item(s) identified in the motion may be discussed in the executive session. " [emphasis added]
This clearly requires more than the minutes tell us.
There are other items like Agendas (these tend to have links to all the documents used at the meetings - follow links to boarddocs), By-Laws, and Policy and Regulation (lots of detail here - all the rules of the university).
There were two major items that caught my attention at Friday's morning meeting. The first was the tuition increase of 5 percent across the board. Two regents voted against it - Regent Fisher arguing (and these are from my quick notes as he spoke):
Since on the board, our headcount declined 8.4% and credit hours up 5%.
But budget has increased. Two reports by national experts on operation
of university. Both told us we needed cost containment for administrative
costs. Even thought headcount and credit hour count went down, our
administrative costs have gone up. I don't think the students
of Alaska and their
parents shouldn't bear the costs of our inability to contain
costs.
But otherwise, there wasn't much opposition and no students were there to protest. A couple even said it was fine. The president said the administrative cutbacks would come with the current round of budget cuts. Here's the table that was in the agenda for the budget increases:
The second item of interest to me was public testimony about the eviction of the Tanaina Child Development Center from their space in the sports complex basement. It's on hold, sort of, while a task force looks at options. This is a topic I've been thinking about and wanting to post about. I went to the task force later that afternoon and will do a separate post on that soon.
Here's the video of Regent John Davies I took. While my camera work could have been better, he gives a good description of his background and what he thinks he can contribute to the board.
It's good I went yesterday, because they don't meet too often. The next two meetings are:
I'm taking the easy way out tonight and offering a glimpse of an art opening at UAA this evening. I'll figure out what to post about the Board of Regent's meeting and their 5% tuition increase and about the Tanaina Child Development Center Task Force meeting later.
Above artists Sam Mack and Jade Ariah stand in front of the gallery at the opening of their exhibit Contentment in the UAA Student Center. At some point as people were talking about finding space where either Tanaina or the Student Services group that is slotted to move, the art gallery was mentioned, and I said, no, no, no. Not an option. And as I came out of the task force meeting to find the opening happening, I understood where my instant response came from. We need art in our lives to refocus our attention and get us thinking about what's important. And it shouldn't be shunted off to museums only, but be right in the middle of where we pass by every day. And it was this evening and did the trick.
Here's a closeup from Jade's Contentment Pt V.
And from Sam's Held Heart. I jokingly said to the artists that they should have pictures of each other in the exhibit, and Sam pointed out that she had a picture of Jade in the exhibit.
I'm only a week late on this, but the mayoral election isn't until the beginning of April, so we're ok for
now. But if I'm going to get some video of some of the major names among the other candidates (I was told there are 12 in all), I'm going to have speed things up.
Overview here, and in depth transcript (and soon the video) below
Halcro's three main reasons for running for mayor were pretty close to what Dan Coffey said were his reasons a couple of weeks ago (see that interview here). There does seem to be a difference in how they might approach these though. Coffey comes from a career as an attorney who's represented developers and the alcohol businesses and he served on the Assembly. Halcro has been involved with his family business (Avis) and been in the state legislature and has run for governor. Halcro is smart and I think he sees things more boardly than most. He's certainly very sure of himself. I think choosing the colors yellow and black for his campaign sign makes that point.
I'd also note a real contrast in the two meet and greet evenings. Halcro's was in a huge warehouse like room that was industrial cold, in the back of the TriGrill on 76th off of Old Seward. While he probably had as many people at his event as Coffey did at Don Jose's (near the very busy intersection of Lake Otis and Northern Lights), the room was ten or twelve times the size as the cozy restaurant setting at Don Jose's and it looked like there was nobody there.
1. Deal with the budget deficit. (Actually this was a secondary issue for Coffey, but the first one that Halcro raised.) He said he's been through this before in the legislature when oil fell to $10 a barrel. He knows the conversations and the exercise, so he knows how to respond.
2. Inebriates and homeless people. And like Coffey he pushed the idea of Housing First (getting housing for this group). Like for Coffey, this was a biggie for Halcro. He said inebriate (or inebriation) and homeless five times each. Both candidates seemed to be interested in this issue because of the nuisance factor, though Coffey at least said we need to have compassion for these people because addiction is a disease and he mentioned that
many of these folks were mentally ill, Halcro never raised that point.
3. Developing Fairview. Actually Halcro was broader on this issue. He identified three areas near downtown that are undervalued and underdeveloped - east downtown, Fairview, and Mt. View. He foresees cool neighborhoods for millenials who want to be near the restaurants, bars, and downtown in general. He also saw this as a way for Anchorage to keep growing. When I asked him if this development would help people living there or simply be gentrification forcing the current residents out, he strongly said it wouldn't be gentrification. He wants, he said, everyone living there now to be able to stay if they want to. This development was also one of the reasons he wants to get the inebriates and homeless out. But if the point is to make this an area that developers want to go in, exactly what will they do there if they don't buy lower priced properties, tear them down, and put in more upscale property? And as the price goes up, so will property taxes. People who sell because the offers seem attractive, won't have any place else to move that they can afford. He may not want people to move out, but I don't see how that won't happen. And he wants the city to give developers incentives to do this. (OK, I'm juxtaposing his words and my words, but he does want the city to give developers incentives to develop there - by making it safer (getting rid of inebriates and homeless) and with tax incentives.)
He also mentioned strengthening public education. I'd note Halcro was the only member of the State House Sustainable Education Task Force who did not vote to approve their report which did appear to be the aim of key members from the beginning: push for public money to go to private schools.
A second major initiative of his presidency of the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce he discussed was his diversity initiatives.
I asked him about the gentrification potential in Fairview - I didn't get a chance to ask Coffey - which I've addressed above and I asked about the extension of Bragaw through the university lands, despite overwhelming community council opposition, and despite the fact we have a budget problem and this would be an easy $20 million to recover since it hasn't been spent yet. He acknowledged that he doesn't know this issue well, but his response also shows he doesn't know the university neighborhood well either. At one point he said, " UMed district really hasn’t changed since I was a kid." That's completely wrong. In the last five to ten years there are four new roads that connect 36th and Tudor between Lake Otis and the new sports center. And since Halcro was a kid, Providence and Lake Otis have become four lane roads, and DOT made a molehill out of mountain to punch 40th through from Lake Otis east to just past Dale Street. And Bragaw (now Elmore) became four lane, and was pushed through to Abbot and MLK Blvd was added south of Tudor. He talked about the growing University, but apparently he forgot he mentioned the State's budget problems at the beginning and the University's budget cuts being submitted right now. Options for getting to the University include all people on campus with a university id card get free People Mover passes. There's a campus shuttle bus that even takes people to the University Center where the University has expanded. But I'm getting off the interview now to my own pet issue. And Halcro acknowledged he hadn't studied this. But he did say there hadn't been improvements in roads to the campus since he was a kid and that's flat out wrong. And he implied, when he said the local folks couldn't be against progress, that progress means roads. In education progress means more and more opportunities to attend class without driving there - like through online classes and audio conferencing and even Skype.
[As I prepare to post this, I realize that I'm comparing Coffey and Halcro here - which makes sense because they both emphasized the same issues. But I'm thinking ahead of posts on other mayoral candidates and if I continue to do it this way, the posts are going to get longer and longer. So I'll probably not do this in the future posts on individual candidates. But I can link to here and eventually have some posts on all the candidates.]
So, here's the transcript I wrote up. It's pretty close, and I think it captures the meaning if not the literal words. I'm not sure you can call it an interview. I did get a couple of questions in. Andrew talks so fast, that even in 50% audio speed I had trouble keeping up with him to write these notes. [Video's up.] It's taking its time to upload, so I'll post this tonight and tomorrow, the video should be ready to embed. I'll put it here:
Transcript of video:
Steve: Andrew, you’ve got a good life, why would you want to run for mayor?
Andrew: Well, That’s exactly why I want to run for mayor. There are three reasons. One, I think the economy is going to be uncertain in the next few years with the state in a $3 billion budget deficit and You need somebody in the mayor’s office who understands how to contain the cost of government, not to mention I was in Juneau, I served in the legislature 15 years ago when they were going through the same thing. Oil was $!0 a barrel and we had a $1billion budget deficit. In fact we spent a lot of time looking at solutions. We also spent a lot of time talking about where to cut the budget. So as the next mayor, I know exactly what those conversations are and therefore I know how to plan and how to contain costs.
The second thing is, I really want to make the community healthier and safer, my last couple of years as president of the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce, we’ve really had an issue with downtown public safety, certainly the crime rate, the chronic inebriate problem, the homeless problem
We have to take the long view of these problems. From the management standpoint we like to nibble around the edges or we like to adopt what we think are going to be these silver bullet programs. We have to realize we’ve got to have a comprehensive approach. With public safety you have to put more officers on the street,
We’re 50 officers short ….. They’ve decimated the gang task force, they’ve decimated the sexual assault task force because they want more officers in patrol cars. And that has really hurt our ability to go out and be proactive. Addressing the gang issue and some of these criminal issues that are now percolating to the top
The communities does need to get healthier the chronic inebriate problem, the homeless problem needs to finally be addressed. We need to look at expanding things like the housing first model that works, it really works. Not only does it get people off the street, it makes them safer, but it also reduces public safety calls to that area. Police will tell you that it’s been a success.
And the third thing is really to just continue to grow the economy and manage the cost of government. Growing the economy in the sense where we get where we get in and doing that should have been done a long time ago. I think some of the greatest areas of our town are the most underdeveloped and undervalued.
I’d like to see huge redevelopment downtown and East Anchorage. I’d like to see us go into Fairview and clean up the area. And provide a just really cool part of town for people to live in. The demographics are changing. We have 82,000 millennials that live and work in this city and they have different needs than I do or you do. It’s a different generation. They want to live downtown, near to bars and restaurants. They want easy access to downtown. In order to attract that kind of investment, you have to address the public safety concerns and you have to address the chronic inebriation and homelessness problems. Because those Developers aren’t going down there to redevelop unless those areas are ripe for development.
So really those things are why I’m running.
My last two years at the Anchorage chamber, we’ve done some groundbreaking work, Our education initiatives to strengthen public schools. I’m chair of the 90% by 2020. I have been for two years which seeks to strengthen public school outcomes by promoting 90% graduation and 90% attendance by 2020
I’ve also been very active in the community with diversity, One Anchorage One Economy has brought in all types of diverse groups. Sitting down and talking about how the business community how we can integrate them into the business community. Talking about how work all one Anchorage, we all live in the same economy and go to the same schools and have all aligned concerns and the same goals. We all want a successful and happy and healthy city. And that’s really why I want to be mayor.
I think, I've lived here for 50 years in the community. Its been stagnant in some places I think we need to move forward on. There are some intractable problems that we haven’t addressed that we really need to address. But by and large, this city has been amazing to me and amazing to the people I love, and I just want to make it stronger for future generations.
Steve: You talked about Fairview, and when I talked to Dan Coffey, he also talked about redevelopment of Fairview. My concern is whether development the people who live there now and get their neighborhood cleaned up and they get to stay there making their lives better, or are we talking about gentrification, and we get rid of the poorer people so the wealthier an move in?
Andrew: No, in my view, redeveloping Fairview is keeping people in their homes who want to stay there. Be more aggressive on the chronic inebriation and homeless problems. Here’s an example, years ago they went into Fairview and they created these neat little parks and put up all kinds of accessaries, then within a year or two they had to take them out because they became gathering places for crime and inebriates and the homeless. I want to see a time when people who live in Fairview today and tomorrow have little pocket parks, I want to see when it’s safe to walk to the store at 11 at night. I want to finally look at 13th and Gamble and say how do we clean this up. This has been a problem since I was 16 years old. It’s not about gentrification, it’s about cleaning up the neighborhood. I want people to stay there. I don’t want anybody to move out of their neighborhoods. I want to use the city’s leverage with tax incentives to tax deferral credits to get in and make the area safer, make it more of a great little community. I mean, they really have a good community council, the Fairview community council the Fairview business association. They’ve done an amazing job and what they need is a little more help from City Hall They have overlays, they have development plans, and they need leadership from city hall, because when I look at this city, there are three areas - there’s east downtown, there’s Fairview and Mountain view. They have the greatest promise, because they are three of the oldest areas of town that are really ripe for people who want to live in cool little neighborhoods.
Steve: Let me ask another question. There’s $20 million sitting out there to build a road through the university campus. All the community councils around there have protested and don’t want the road. Where do you stand on this?
Andrew: I haven’t really studied this project. But I will tell you the area is growing and we need to have better access in and out. Whether that means adopting that road plan I can’t say. I do know is you have a growing University you’ve got a hospital that’s growing fast, if there are ways we can improve access without cutting the road through the CC areas, we should do that. But there’s no question that area needs better transportation access. The road system in the UMed district really hasn’t changed since I was a kid. I access from Northern Lights to 36th to Providence Dr. None of the roads in that area have matured. Maybe instead of doing the road through the university, maybe we should look at approach roads that get people into the university district. As a former community council president, I’m very sensitive to the wishes of community councils, they work hard, they get their people out every month, they have the best interests of their community at heart. We went through the same things at Sand Lake when they wanted to build homes in a gravel pit. So I understand the frustration. It does require some collaboration. You can’t just show up and say we’re going to build a road in that area. But you also can’t just say we’re not going to have progress, because that area is going to continue to grow and it’s continue to be served by underdeveloped roads.
Steve: Any other critical issues you want to talk about?
I just want to at least note this. We did go to the second concert. I listened to a couple of the Paganini caprices online, but I wondered how I was going to appreciate all 24. caprices. Would I count to keep track? Yes, I'd like it, but if I knew more about them before I went it would be so much better.
That's true, of course, but I needn't have worried. Barton Pine knows that most people are not Paganini experts. For the first half, she stopped after every two caprices and talked about Paganini and about the caprices themselves and demonstrated different techniques that the specific caprices would highlight.
The second half there were fewer explanations, but we'd been coached enough in the beginning to be able to listen and watch for the different bowing techniques and other tricks Paganini used to expand what the violin could do.
Paganini was born in 1772 - four years before the signing of the Declaration of Independence. What did news reports of the new nation mean to this child prodigy? The loss of Britain's colony in the New World and the emergence of this new 'democracy' was something he would have known about. There is even some speculation of his visiting America, but this interesting account of his life says it never happened.
In early 1828 Nicolo began a six and half year tour that
started in Vienna and ended in Paris in September 1834. During the two
and half year period from August 1828 to February, 1831 he visited some
40 cities in Germany, Bohemia, and Poland. Performances in Vienna,
Paris, and London were hailed widely, and his tour in 1832 through
England and Scotland made him wealthy.
His playing
of tender passages was so beautiful that his audiences often burst into
tears, and yet, he could perform with such force and velocity that at
Vienna one listener became half crazed and declared that for some days
that he had seen the Devil helping the violinist.
Rachel Barton Pine
Also of interest, was Barton Pine's description of her violin which is on loan to her and was made by Joseph Guarnerius del Gesu in 1742, two years before his death and 40 years before Paganini's birth! The violin is known as ex-Soldat for one of the violinists who played it - Maria Soldat. The story includes Brahms and Ludwig Wittgenstein, the philosopher. But that will have to be another post. I'm sure regular readers can already anticipate the directions that post might take.
It was an incredible evening and the 800 seat Discovery Theater was pretty much full. It's a theater, while four times the size of the location of the previous night's concert, where every seat gives you a great view and great sound.
Final, final note - The picture above was taken at the end of the concert during the standing applause. The picture below was taken in the lobby while Rachel Barton Pine talked to fans and signed autographs.
It's climate change. And a cold spell in the East doesn't change the overall trend. While it might be freezing in New York, our indoor/outdoor thermometer reads 48˚F here in Anchorage.
When a teacher has a 'problem' student in class, the easiest response is to get him (or her) out of the class. But experienced teachers know that another one will take his place. The real answer is to analyze your teaching and find if there is a different way to get your message across or find out what the underlying problems are that the kid has and find help.
I thought about that when I watched this video of John Oliver over on Immoral Minority. People have been lamenting the departure of Jon Stewart from the Daily Show. And Stewart does have a knack for getting right to the issue and nailing it. Of course it helps to have a great staff of researchers and production folks to back you up.
But my thought was, when one leaves, another one will pop up to take his place.
We are a country of 300 million people. 1% of 300 million equals 3 million. Half of that is still 1.5 million. So there's a pool of 1.5 million Americans in the top one half percent of the funniest/smartest Americans. Surely among that group we can find plenty of talent to not only replace Jon Stewart, but to find new and amazing ways to expose the corrupt and crazy among the powerful. We have the talent to put on 100 different Daily Shows if we look and nurture the very best.
Jeff the Diseased Lung and John Oliver
So, here's the segment that inspired that thought. John Oliver takes on the tobacco industry for suing nations over tobacco restrictions. Yes, nations. They lost in Australia's supreme court, according to Oliver, but then they appealed it over technical issues in trade treaties. And for Uruguay and Togo, two more countries they sued over restrictions on cigaret packaging, the threat of a huge lawsuit is more than such a country can handle.
The whole segment is definitely worth watching to
see how truly evil the tobacco companies are
think about how we empower these companies so they can violate the health interests of independent nations
consider what they are doing to us in the US (think "global warming hasn't been proven")
realize that there are plenty of other Jon Stewarts waiting out there to take his place, and then some.
have a good laugh or three at Phillip Morris' expense
Most of us know almost nothing about ISIS. There's a name, news reports, and photos and we each create our own story to explain them. My friend Jeremy linked to an Atlantic article which gives us more. Of course, we take the author's words with a grain of salt. But it's evidence to put into the record to compare with the other evidence that is gathered. I recommend reading it.
Here's a snipped that contrasts Al Qaeda with ISIS, says one is modern and corporate while the other is 7th Century:
We are misled in a second way, by a well-intentioned but dishonest campaign to deny the Islamic State’s medieval religious nature. Peter Bergen, who produced the first interview with bin Laden in 1997, titled his first book Holy War, Inc. in part to acknowledge bin Laden as a creature of the modern secular world. Bin Laden corporatized terror and franchised it out. He requested specific political concessions, such as the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Saudi Arabia. His foot soldiers navigated the modern world confidently. On Mohamd Atta’s last full day of life, he shopped at Walmart and ate dinner at Pizza Hut.
There is a temptation to rehearse this observation—that jihadists are modern secular people, with modern political concerns, wearing medieval religious disguise—and make it fit the Islamic State. In fact, much of what the group does looks nonsensical except in light of a sincere, carefully considered commitment to returning civilization to a seventh-century legal environment, and ultimately to bringing about the apocalypse.
Is this accurate? Time will tell. Meanwhile this article offers much to chew on. More than the simplistic coverage we mostly get.
Feedburner usually gets my posts to subscribers and to blogrolls on other blogs. But frequently enough to bother me, it doesn't get them to the blogrolls. Here's my latest post that isn't getting to blogrolls, though I posted it over 12 hours ago. My fixes include:
1. Going directly to Feedburner an giving it a manual update instruction. Sometimes this works, and sometimes this doesn't. This doesn't seem to be working today.
2. Simply copying and reposting. Sometimes this works. But today there's already a comment on the post and if I do this and turn off the original post, that comment will be lost. I could, I guess, copy the comment and repost it with an explanation.
3. Check the html for lots of extraneous code that might have been introduced when I cut and pasted something from another website. If I get rid of the unnecesary code, sometimes that works. But I'm never sure if it works because I got rid of the extra code, or because I reposted it. Sometimes I've tried reposting without fixing the code and it doesn't work, and then after cleaning out the weeds in the html, and repost it works.
When I repost, I disable the original post so I don't have the same post up twice.
But options 2 and 3 both have the comment problem. If I disable the original post, the comment goes away.
So, I'm using this fourth option. Talking about the problem and redirecting people to the post titled:
We went to the Sitka Music Festival's Winter Classics at UAA Saturday night. Three incredible musicians, world class musicians, playing in the incredible concert hall in the UAA theater arts building.
before. You've heard of sculptors who release the sculpture living inside a piece of marble. My sense of Zuill Bailey is that he sets the music free from inside the cello. He doesn't so much play the cello as help it sing.
Eduard Zilberkant was the pianist. Let me just say he was also amazing, even though I'm partial to the strings. Listening to the three instruments together, trading off sounds then coming together, yet not quite, it was breath taking. Literally. There were points where I had to remind myself to start breathing again. Go to the link, I'd be up all night if I tried to do these musicians any justice at all.
And then there was Rachel Burton Pine. (Just go to the link.) As is painfully clear to anyone who knows about music, I'm just a casual listener. I can't tell you really why in musical terms, I can just tell you what it did to me. In this case, I'm going to use someone else's words to tell you who she is and what she does.
Barton and Zilberkant
Because she plays again tomorrow night and at the Discovery Theater downtown there are more seats and it's not sold out yet. From the Daily Beast, why you should get tickets and go:
Violinist Rachel Barton Pine’s life is a seemingly unending list of extraordinary achievements, from her soloist debut at age 10 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to her recent live performances of Paganini’s ‘24 Caprices For Solo Violin’--a series of virtuosic pieces so technically challenging that very few violinists perform them in sequence. She has published a book of her own arrangements and cadenzas, recorded 24 albums, and travelled with the world’s most prestigious ensembles.
She's going to play those Paganini's '24 Caprices for Solo Violin' Sunday evening (Feb. 15) at 7:30pm. This isn't something you can see very often. And it's here, in Anchorage, with a premiere violinist.
The Standing Ovation
Let's go back to the title of this post. Why I Live Here. Most of the posts that have that label are about getting to nature quickly. But another advantage of Anchorage is that we have world class performers who we can see in intimate settings for much less than people pay in big cities. The University venue they were in Saturday is a 30 minute walk from my house, a five minute drive, with free parking.
If you look at the pictures you can see how intimate it was Saturday night - there were 20 overflow seats on stage! Not a good place to sit if you're prone to fall asleep in a concert. But if you're that close, it would probably be hard to do.
Saturday night's tickets were less than half the cheapest tickets when we went to a mediocre concert at the Disney Concert Hall in LA. The UAA Concert Hall is a magical acoustical music box seating only 200 people. The Disney in LA seats eleven times that many - 2,265. The Discovery Theater, where Rachel Barton Pine plays tonight (Sunday,) seats 800, still a relatively small venue.
This is most of the audience on the main floor. There's a smaller balcony above. Thank you Michael Hood for fighting for this building and getting it built with such incredible performing spaces. These people played here Saturday because Zuill Bailey loved the acoustics.
Here's a little preview of Sunday night's concert. (Sorry, this post is getting a bit cluttered.)
And if you don't read music, here's a different sort of preview of the music (be sure to listen to the end.)
I do have to make a minor disclosure here. I learned this week that a college friend of my son is Rachel Barton Pine's husband. But that's not why I'm gushing here. This was fantastic and tomorrow night will be too.
