You might know a lot of them, but I met my first professional thereminist the other day. Well, complete disclosure. It was the first thereminst professional or otherwise I ever met. This was at a Christmas party that I semi-crashed. I had been stopped by an unknown gatekeeper at the door of my local biergarten. She told me that a private function was underway, and the bar would be open to the general public in an hour. The establishment’s owner interceded to ask if it would be all right for me to sit at the bar, and the gatekeeper agreed. I then asked her what the group was, and she replied, “The Mark Morris Dance Group.” The gatekeeper seemed pleased that I knew about MMDG after I ingratiatingly told some of my vast array of Mark Morris anecdotes. (I have attended performances, and Mark Morris danced a long time ago in a dance company headed by the wife of a colleague and friend.) As I was sitting at the bar, nursing an Einbecker, a man squeezed in beside me, a ticket in hand, to get his own beer. He perfunctorily asked me, “What do you do with Mark Morris?” I said I was not affiliated, just a cherished neighbor of the bar’s owner. But I felt compelled to reciprocate, and he told me that he played the theremin in some of the dance company’s performance. He then also told me about some of his other theremin gigs. I could not imagine that one could make a living playing the instrument which emits those weird sounds, but he said he did. With a look that seemed to indicate that he was well rid of me (I was not going to offer him work), he wandered off among the tables. A half hour later he was next to me again with another ticket in hand. I then asked him what he thought of Sheldon Cooper playing the theremin. He hesitated as if he did not want to acknowledge the reference (you can look it up on YouTube), but he then said that it was awful. After a few seconds he amended himself: “It was good that he introduced the instrument to so many. But his playing. . . .”

Good news: Life expectancy, which fell in this country when Trump was president, has started to rebound although it is still not as long as it was before the decline started under Trump.

The spouse is so immature. I’d be at home in the bath, and she’d come in and sink my boats.

After the last Republican presidential debate, which I hope you have forgotten, commentators on a conservative “news” channel bemoaned that the candidates only attacked each other and did not discuss issues. One said, “Not one of them talked about high taxes.” Apparently, she had forgotten that the tax cuts skewed towards the rich by the Republicans only six years ago are still in effect. She must have been of the political camp of the observer who asked, “Are we ever going to realize our political ideal of making the other fellow pay the taxes?”

I would like to see those candidates talk about this issue: healthcare. The United States spends much more on healthcare per capita than any other country. However, life expectancy in this country lags far behind that in other

developed nations. (It is slightly shorter than it is even in Cuba.) Our healthcare is confusing and filled with bureaucracies. Does anyone want to hear another commercial for a medicare advantage plan? They don’t exist in countries with better healthcare systems. But our candidates don’t address the situation. Oh, yes, except for Trump, who recently again said that if elected he would get rid of Obamacare and replace it with something better. Are old promises the best ones? I have been waiting since 2016 for the details or even the broadest outline of Trump’s “better” healthcare plan, and I don’t hold my breath for one now.

“No problem is too big to run away from.” Charles M. Schultz.