Month: December 2019

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Back to the Happiest Place on Earth

Last week the space bar on my MBP stopped working. Thankfully it was only for a brief period of time, but it was a sign that I needed to get off my ass and get that machine back to Apple for yet another top case/keyboard replacement. In addition, the machine has been "popping" for months. The best way to describe it is the sound an empty plastic drink bottle being squeezed. There's no rhyme or reason to when it pops; sometimes it happens when the machine's cool, sometimes when it's warm. And lastly, the USB ports on either side of the machine have become laughably loose—and whatever's connected randomly loses connection (usually external drives. Annoying.).

I still have about seven months left on my Apple Care, so I knew sooner rather than later I would have to bite the bullet and get the machine in for service. As I've bitched before, it's a huge hassle to part with the machine for the typical 3-5 days it takes Apple to replace this, but thankfully we still have Ben's old 2010 model that I can use while mine is out for repair. It's a [first world problem] pain in the ass to transfer my data now because that machine can't be upgraded to the same OS I'd been running on mine, and—because Apple—you can't utilize the built-in Migration Assistant to seamlessly transfer data from the newer machine to the older.

So I have to go in manually and move stuff. I left Microsoft ten years ago because of this kind of bullshit. But Apple…it just works!

If you count the original exchange of my laptop a week after getting it, this is the fourth time this issue has been addressed, and—per Apple—this would automatically qualify me for a complete machine replacement.  But in Apple's view, this policy is by serial number, so this repair is only the third time now. So…no soup for me!

On the other hand, I was told they're no longer making parts for my 2016 model, meaning I'll probably end up with the newer iteration of the top case containing the (marginally) better butterfly assembly. Still not ideal, but if this replacement craps out before the expiration of my Apple Care, the Genius at Apple told me I'll end up with a new laptop altogether. (A 2019—or if the timing is right, hopefully the hotly-anticipated 2020 model with the scissor keyboard if it comes out by then.)

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Akhnaten

Last night Ben and I went to the Fathom Events screening of the New York Metropolitan's production of Philip Glass's Akhnaten. I have loved this piece since I first got my hands on the CD recording in the spring of 1988. I finally got it on vinyl last March, having only heard it digitally for the past 30 years. I've written at length (here, and here) about how it affects me, but long ago I gave up any hope of ever seeing the opera performed.

All that changed last night.

When a friend in San Francisco alerted me to the upcoming performance  on Fathom a few weeks ago, I jumped at it. Yes, the tickets were kind of pricey relative to a regular movie, but it was at a one of the nice dinner-and-a-movie theaters, and after experiencing it last night, I have to say it was worth every damn penny.

These are shots from the "new" Phelim McDermott production (the one we saw last night), not the one you find on YouTube.


All it took was the opening notes of the Prelude and the tears started streaming down my cheeks. The Window of Appearances and Akhnaten and Nefertiti gave me chills.

The sets, the staging, the costumes all combined to transport me to another world. And if nothing else, made me want to now see this production live. In short, it was magical.

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Sometimes I Think We're Living in a Simulation and Just Running Lines of Code

Perhaps we are lines of code…

Humans fancy that there's something special about the way we perceive the world, and yet we live in loops, as tight and as closed as the Hosts do, seldom questioning our choices…" ~ Doctor Robert Ford, Westworld

This quote has been rolling around my head lately, leaving me amazed at its truth. Have you thought about your daily routine? I know my weekday mornings especially are locked into the same basic loop day in and day out, as if running lines of code from a script. Can I change it? Of course I can, but it snaps back to what it was if the new routine doesn't prove useful.  The script changes on its own over time in large and small ways, but the basic…functionality…remains unchanged.

There are many other examples of this script-running in my life. What about you? Can you truly say you're "drastically off-narrative"?