I'm suffering for content, people ...

Seventh grade was probably the worst year of my life. All my fears -- about everything -- originated in junior high school. Among other absurd things I wish I could forget about this period of time was a class I took called Reading. I have no recollection, apart from the obvious, of what we accomplished in this class. But I do remember that on Mondays we were expected to show up with a book, any book, and to sit and read silently for the duration of class. Much as, as an adult, I would now consider this, like required nap time, to be a class sent by God, it's really shocking how hard it was for our teacher to organize an activity as progressive as silent reading when it involved a bunch of 12-year-olds. First of all, after a weekend of who knows what you do when you're twelve, what preteen could remember to bring a book to school (like, where do you even find those)? And did she really expect 25 kids to sit quietly for an entire hour? It's not that it was an inherently bad idea. It's just that ... IT WAS AN INHERENTLY BAD IDEA! If you've been a junior high teacher for longer than about nine minutes, you would know that this would never work. And sure enough, after the inaugural Monday silent read session, during which three or four kids got kicked out and probably half the rest of us given detention, she probably should have taken another angle, like, I dunno, reading out loud. But she stuck to her guns and made herself and us miserable for the rest of the year.

I wasn't one of the bad kids in the class, but I was the kid who never remembered, not even once, to take a book to class, and every Monday afternoon I had to walk up to this teacher's desk, look at my shoes, express my regret, and ask to go back to my locker to retrieve the book that I, along with the rest of my fellow students, would then not read for the next hour. This teacher did not understand my forgetfulness, and her displeasure with me for some reason made it more and more unlikely every week that I would ever actually remember to do what I was supposed to do. Negative reinforcement? Doesn't work.

One Monday about five or six weeks into the term, I was so mortified at having yet again neglected to bring my f-ing book that I decided, rather than announcing what I'd done, I would instead PRETEND I that I did have a book in my lap, and I would pretend for one, long hour to read it. Acting quickly, behind my desk I scrunched up my legs into a tight ball, placed my imaginary book in front of them, and stuck my face down close to my legs and the "book" and didn't look up for a second. I'm not sure if I really believed this would work, but it certainly would have been easier to pull off from the back of the class since there at least I would have been hidden by the level of activity going on in front of me. Unfortunately, in my desperation to become a better student I had chosen a permanent seat in the first row of the class. Still, for awhile it seemed to be working except that the kid next to me couldn't control his laughter. I calmly scanned from one side of my legs to the other and tried to look engrossed. The thought crossed my mind that I wasn't actually sure I could stare at my legs for an hour, but then I realized I'd been found out. How, I don't know, but I looked up, and the teacher was staring at me with the kind of irritation that if I remember correctly is common among long-since faded and resentful people who regret having chosen to work with children. She asked me, "Majel. What are you doing?"

The reason I'm telling you this story is because it actually relates to our work here at Den Norske Opera. We had our dress rehearsal last night, and while I won't say it was a complete and utter ruin, Christopher came damn near close to walking out even before the curtain. For weeks he's been telling the folks on the technical team, all Norwegians, that he needed to see the English and Norwegian translations they were were planning to use as subtitles for the libretto, and insisting they do a trial run with the subtitle screens on the backs of the chairs in the audience BEFORE THE DRESS REHEARSAL. The problem with a brand new opera house is that all the technology is also brand new, and nobody has any idea how to get it to work. The orchestra pit wasn't even built when we moved into the stage space, and people are continually falling off the steps into the pit. The curtain stopped halfway across the stage the first time we used it. There aren't even any house lights. When you're in the audience and you need to see anything, they have to turn on a big halogen bulb that could burn your eyes out, and that's suspended from the ceiling on a big power cord. No one seems to know where anything is, or even if they did know, how to do the right thing with it. Poor Paul, the stage designer, asked five weeks ago for a few patches to be mended in the wood panels on the back wall of the set. It's still not done and one day before the premiere, it's not looking like it'll get done. Last night, the poor fool running the subtitles kept blowing all the big lines by getting there too fast. They have 24 hours.