Tag Archives: Powell Hall

Gabby and Mark

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Sliver of a Moon

Sliver of a Moon

Joanie invited us to accompany her and her girlfriends to hear Gabby Giffords and her husband, Mark Kelly at Powell Hall. Giffords and Kelly were in town as part of the Saint Louis Speaker Series. This was actually Anne’s second visit to Powell for the day. She was there in the morning with her second graders, where they heard the Saint Louis Symphony. First the basics, the kids behaved and she didn’t lose any. The orchestra, played all that fun music for the kids that as an adult you wish that they would perform for you at the symphony, like the Blue Danube waltz, Beethoven’s 5th and Night on Bald Mountain. As if that wasn’t fun enough they would replay selected pieces, first as originally written and then in either a jazz, rock or hip-hop arrangement. Isn’t that just like the symphony, first they hook you as a kid, then they leave you strung out on Mahler?

Mark Kelly did most of the speaking last night, with his wife Gabby joining him for a few remarks near the end. They both participated equally in the moderated Q&A session afterwards. If there was a theme to the talk, I guess that it would be, “Never surrender. Never give up.” It started with a story about his 4+ foot mother becoming a New Jersey police officer. His dad already a policeman built her a copy of the seven-foot wall that she would be expected to vault to pass her police boards. In the beginning, she couldn’t even reach the top, but by the time she took her test, her time beat most of the other men’s.

Kelly like every other aviator that I have known is an excellent story-teller. His story of his first combat sortie during the Gulf war was precious. He was an Intruder pilot and inbound had to dodge multiple SAM launches. After pickling his bombs he decided to divert and return via Iran, to avoid the SAMs. On his way back, he heard chatter from the carrier’s Hornet pilots vectoring towards an Iraqi bogie. Their description of the bogie’s course and speed matched his. Putting two-and-two together, he fessed up to his “Flight of the Intruder” transgression. He admitted to not being a very good pilot, when he started out, but he kept plugging away at it and never gave up. Of his flight school class, he was the only one to become either a Top Gun instructor or a shuttle astronaut.

In his talk Mark spoke about his military career, his experiences at NASA where he piloted four space shuttle missions and of course the day that changed both of their lives and its aftermath. Neither Mark nor Gabby were very political in their talk, rather more aspirational. Only afterwards in the Q&A session was the topic of gun control raised and their response was surprisingly measured. They only advocated that guns be kept out of the hands of criminals, the mentally ill and abusive spouses. Gabby is not yet fully recovered and may never become so, but she hasn’t given up and continues to improve. Last year, she rode her bicycle 40 miles in a Tucson charity ride and has her eyes on the 120 mile route next year.

Christmas Candlelight Concert

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Powell Hall Lobby

Powell Hall Lobby

The Saint Louis Bach Society held its annual Christmas Candlelight Concert last night. They have been performing this concert since 1951. This was our first time. We along with 2700 other audience members enjoyed the show. It was a full house. I had gotten our tickets only last week, so we were way up at the top, in the nose bleed section. Still the acoustics were excellent and our view wasn’t too bad. The program before intermission was Handel’s Messiah. Members of the Saint Louis Symphony under contract to the Bach Society provided the night’s orchestration. They accompanied four soloists and a 50+ member chorus. I stayed awake through the recitation and did not need to be elbowed awake again for the Hallelujah Chorus. After intermission a 200 member children’s chorus filled all of the aisles in the auditorium for the candlelight procession, even up where we were sitting. The second half of the evening was filled with a selection of religious Christmas carols. Many of them were new to me, but there were also plenty of familiar ones too. There were a few audience participation singalongs too.

Before the concert, we had dinner at the Triumph Grill. Named for the motorcycle brand, the Triumph is part of a motorcycle themed block that includes a couple of dealerships and is capped off by the Moto Museum, a museum dedicated to the motorcycle. In fact the area was once the auto dealership center for Saint Louis. The by today’s standards small showrooms are now only suitable for two-wheelers. Many of the exteriors features in this area were decorated with strings of blue lighting. We couldn’t tell whether the strings were neon or rope LED. We also couldn’t tell you if they are a seasonal installation or if they will be around all year. They were pretty to see.

Game Changers

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Powell Hall

Powell Hall

Towards the end of the interminable 2008 Democratic primary campaign, as Barack Obama was securing his party’s nomination, Hillary Clinton is reported to have said of Obama, “God wants him to win.” During the 2012 campaign, Bill Clinton repeatedly joked about President Obama, “He’s luckier than a dog with two dicks”, to describe his comeback in that year’s presidential election. Mark Halperin and John Heilemann are both journalists and co-authors. In 2008 they teamed up to write the book “Game Change”, about the 2008 presidential campaign. They recently released their 2012 sequel, “Double Down: Game Change 2012”. Halperin is a senior political analyst for Time magazine, and Heilemann covers US politics for New York magazine; both are political analysts for MSNBC. We heard them both speak at the Saint Louis Speakers Series, which is held last night at Powell Hall. Anne and I were treated to tickets by Joanie and attended the speaker series with her and her friend Lynn. While the two author’s two books look at US politics in retrospect, their two talks looked forward over the political landscape. Halperin spoke first, followed by Heilemann and then they handled Q&A together. They predicted divided government to continue for some time to come. The Republicans will control the House at least until after the 2020 census and likely much longer. The Senate will flip-flop back-and-forth, while the Whitehouse will remain in Democratic hands. First, with the remainder of Obama’s term, but then with the election of Hillary Clinton. They were both very matter-of-fact about this prescription for government gridlock and also emphatic about its likelihood.