Text 8775, 113 rader
Skriven 2008-06-12 14:32:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: reunion 3 449
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The usual breakfast, but I hooked up with an old buddy, now
a lesbian feminist lawyer, and we talked and talked, and so
I made myself a bacon butty to go to munch on en route to
the day's seminars.

Number one, The Supreme Court and the War on Terror, offered
a range of opinions, most of them informed by a liberalish
sensibility (the moderator was Seth Waxman, Solicitor General
under Clinton). Considering it was by, for, and with lawyers,
it was still somewhat enjoyable, and I now know enough about
habeas corpus to amaze my friends and impress women. Not.

Number two was entitled How to Age Gracefully to 100 - I
noted that the audience was composed mostly of that fraction
of us who looked as though we were in fact close on 100
already. It dealt mostly with the longitudinal study of boys
from the Harvard class of '42 I think - the common-sense
conclusions appeared obvious, that being professionally
fulfilled and personally happy in a stable relationship,
having exercised, and having not drunk to excess or smoked
at all had health and longevity benefits. The surprise was
in the numbers, which were hugely striking, especially for
tobacco, especially combined with alcohol.

Missed lunch, which was fine, as I had to practice and have
a nap before dress rehearsal, where, we discovered to our
chagrin, despite being first on the program, we were to be
last on the rehearsal roster, so they could have the stage
set for the show when we walked off. Oh, well, time to sneak
off to the bar, where I had numerous cranberry juices (there
after all was work to be done), pretending them to be Cape
Codders.

Passed hors d'oeuvres, none of which I could enjoy on
account of their heavy dairytude - spanakopitas, chicken
quesadillas, cherry tomatoes stuffed with cream cheese. I
cheated and had one of each, using my daily quota of pills. I
think they were from a freezer out in the midwest someplace.

Back to rehearsal and then a slug of that Sicilian white
before a hurried dinner: tomato salad with balsamic
dressing; prime rib with Madeira sauce (passed on the
sauce); salmon (looked overcooked, so I passed); asparagus
(good); tatties (passed); dessert table (passed). The food
was good if a little institutional. The red wine, a South
African Merlot, likewise.

The class talent show, now named Cabaret, is apparently a
tradition, a bullet that I'd dodged for numerous reunions.
The emcee was Old Slug Queen Bananita Sluginsky, whose fame
in this department at least stems from her having presided
over the 1993 incarnation of the annual festival in Eugene
that celebrates the banana slug. Okay, whatever. She is very
funny (with an edge to the humor - the previous class emcee
was some guy named Franken, and at that event, she had edged
him in edginess) and a good tap dancer.

The opening number was the Beethoven serenade (or as much of
it as we could fit into a 12-minute allotment) featuring my
friends Katharine on flute and Yeou-Cheng on violin augmented by
yours truly on viola: we'd been recruited by the organizer,
Marion Dry, who teaches music at Wellesley, to add some
seriousness (she referred to it as "quality") to a mostly
light-toned evening. That was torpedoed a little by the spoken
intro to the piece and by the fact that our names were all
three misspelled on the program: "Katherine," "Yeou Cheng,"
and Michael "Woo." We were appreciated perhaps more
enthusiastically than the (decent) performance warranted.

Highlights included Jerome Harris, a truly first-rate blues/
jazz guitarist (heard on recordings numerous) with a haunting
singing voice (heard on recordings not at all); Lobster Man Rick
Grosvenor and his wife Terri doing the Lobster Quadrille (composed
by Terri to words by someone famous); avoiding a 600-line
dirge on the death of Milton; a mini-recital by Marion of arias
whose unifying thread was gender-bending (the performer's intent
being what?); and various reincarnations of singing groups from
near on four decades ago.

And of course the inevitable afterparty.

Back when I was in school, such a thing would have been
unheard of - we knew the underage bars and frequented them
at the cost of potential humiliation - but there is now a
bar in the basement of the freshman dining hall; it's
called the Queen's Head Pub, and it's hard to find on the
Web but easy to find in real life. They pour a variety of
brews (one excited undergraduette bartender at another
function told me that there were things one couldn't get
anyplace else; on further inquiry it turned out she wasn't
a beer person and was unable to cite any of the brands
available except for the dark ale 1636, a sweetish malty
substance that might be the only beer around that is brewed
on behalf of an institution of Higher learning. The others
turn out to include such rarities as Harpoon and Anchor Steam.

They reserved the place for us supposedly 10 to 12, but as
the concert or whatever it was went overtime, we didn't get
there until almost 11. I managed to choke down about five
during the hour, cushioned by desserts, which included a
variety of chocolate things and a bundernuss torte that was
quite good indeed.

Afterward, I hooked up with my incredibly wealthy friend
Howard and some of his buddies, and we went back to Grafton
Street for a nightcap or two or three. As I was the poor
starving musician, I didn't have to pay. To my shock and
surprise whoever did left a 200% tip.

Unsteadily back down to Quincy and bed.
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