Getting “High” on Wine

Mike Gonze

Do you enjoy a glass of wine with dinner? But what makes that glass of wine “good”? In a nutshell, it’s just what tastes “good” to you. That’s the mantra of our instructor, wine expert and purveyor Mike Gonze.

I was one of about 20 Osher members who attended Mike’s recently completed three week course — Wine Appreciation: Focus on Cabernet and Chardonnay. The classes were held in the Cathedral of Learning’s lofty Babcock Room, a large conference room 40 stories up, with a stunning 360° panoramic view of the city. We had to take a special (and truly claustrophobic) elevator to the top. During one class we were even joined by a peregrine falcon as it chirped along the edge of the building.

This class began with an introduction to the various aspects of wine such as color, aroma, acid, tannin, body, and finish. Mike defined each of those ideas and then followed that with a tasting of five very distinctive wines. We were urged to use our five senses to experience each one. The wines represented flavors from grapes grown in Germany, New Zealand, France, and California. We then discussed what we liked or didn’t like about each of the wines. There were nearly as many explanations as students. Ciabatta bread and several delicious cheeses accompanied each tasting. By the end of the first session, I came away with a much more informed palate.

Week two featured white wines. Again, we used our senses to realize the differences even within the same grape variety. Mike explained that 60 % of the taste of wine comes from the soil in which the grape is grown. The climate and rootstock are also factors. We tasted two California Chardonnay and two French Chablis wines.

The final week red wine was the topic. An Australian Merlot, a French Bordeaux, and Cabernets from Spain and California were poured. To start class, Mike answered a few of our questions. One that interested me was about the controversy of screw cap vs. cork. Mike said he is still undecided on that one. He pointed out though, that increasingly vintners are switching to the screw cap. Why? Because buyers seem to appreciate not having to struggle to open the bottle, and because the screw cap has no adverse effect on the wine, whereas improperly cured cork stoppers can adulterate the wine. After a brief talk on wine magazines and internet offerings, we got into the wines. Mike discussed the features of each one as well as the food that would be well paired with it. The final thought of the class came back to the first – wine derives its value not from where it is grown, nor even from its cost, but from what tastes “good” to you.

You don’t have to wait until this class is offered again. Mike and his colleague, Tribune Review wine columnist Dave DeSimone, conduct tastings and classes at Mike’s wine shop in the Strip District. The website is palatepartners.com. Click on “tastings”.
The French have a saying — wine is food and it is on the tongue that it speaks. I expect to have long discussion with a bottle of Chardonnay this evening.

Sara Kobak

10 O’clock Jump

Jazz in the Movies: Cathedral of Learning, Room 313, Thursday, September 6th, 10am.

I spotted my favorite seat—last row, next to the window. It was empty. I made a bee line for it.The room was nearly full. Nice turnout. Then John Wilson came through the door. I thought, huh, he’s taking the Reading Genres course too…then I thought, uh oh, something’s wrong here. I punched in the calendar on my cell phone and pulled up my Thursday schedule. Nothing. I pulled up the Wednesday schedule: Reading Genres at 10am, Room 313. I’d missed Reading Genres on Wednesday. Somehow or the other I’d gotten the idea that Reading Genres was on Thursday. Go figure. Hoping to make lemonade out of a lemon, I confessed my screw-up to Pat Szczepanski , and asked her if I could sit in on Wilson’s class. She cut me a break, and I settled in.

This week John screened the musical excerpts from The Benny Goodman/Glenn Miller Story movies.

The utterly fascinating aspect of this class is that John Wilson is a professional jazz musician who has played and hung out with many of the major jazz figures of the last 60 years or so–and he has the anecdotes to prove it. For example, he told us about the time he was in Hollywood with the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra (circa 1955). One day on the Universal lot he ran into an old army buddy who had been hired to compose additional music for the Benny Goodman Story–Henry Mancini.

“At that moment,” John recounted, “he was on his way to the Universal Studios film library, where they had all the scores of every movie Universal ever made. So they gave him the keys and said ‘go help yourself.’ So he spent several days just looking at these scores, getting the feel for the types of orchestration required. He was a little uptight about it, I think, but he did a good job because he was nominated for an academy award. He didn’t win it for this one, he won one later on. But this was a good first attempt for him.”

As a member of Goodman’s band in the late 40’s, John had plenty of opportunity to see Benny in action, so his statement that Steve Allen did a terrific job of mimicking Benny’s fingering and breathing technique was based on eye witness observation.

As for the films themselves, the music was perfectly fine, but John had edited out the love interest scenes, so they seemed more like documentaries. Hey, they probably should have been documentaries in the first place, because what back stories I did see were pretty boring. I did like Jimmy Stewart playing Glenn Miller, but I like Jimmy Stewart in just about anything. For my money though, I’d have cast June Allyson as Benny’s wife and Donna Reed, fresh “From Here to Eternity”, as Glenn’s wife, not the other way around. But I’ve had this thing for Donna Reed ever since FHTE, so I’m biased.

Len Z

ps: Prof. Wilson is handling the A/V chores like a pro now. Practice makes perfect.

From ACLA, With Love

There’s a new and exciting link between the folks at the Allegheny County Library Association (ACLA) and OLLI, thanks to avid OLLI member Ruth Buckley. ACLA is the administrative office for the 44 Libraries of Allegheny County, including the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. Ruth, who somehow manages to divide her time between OLLI classes and her important work as Community Consultant for ACLA, has arranged to have a special ACLA team of experts teach an OLLI class on how we can expand our reading pleasure by experiencing more literary genres. The five week class will be taught by accomplished librarians who will bring their unique storytelling talents to the task.

Week One: Tyrone Ward, Director of the Carnegie Library of Homestead, will discuss philosophical novels. He has interests in jazz, philosophy and history. The title of his presentation is, Have You Read a Philosophical Novel Lately? We don’t want to tell you too much about his unusual approach, but suffice to say he’ll show you you’re reading more philosophical novels than you think.

Week Two: Jean Kanouff is the Adult Librarian at the Penn Hills library. Jean’s hobby is presenting fashion shows using vintage clothing. She’ll be talking about biographies we may have missed from an intriguing perspective: Jean will be modeling clothing worn by the biographers’ subjects. Be prepared to meet several historical figures.

Week Three: Anne New is currently a part-time librarian at the Bethel Park Library and an adjunct professor at the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Information Science. Anne will explain how historical fiction can serve as a fascinating time machine to take us back to our favorite bygone era, and will accompany herself on guitar as she sings about selected titles.

Week Four: Don Wentworth is a published poet, and is editor and publisher of the Lilliput Review, which specializes in the short poem. He’ll talk about what poetry is, its origins and why we turn to it during the rites of passage in our lives. Don has picked out a number of pieces that he will use to leaven the discussion, with basic tips on how to read and appreciate poetry.

Week Five: Christine McIntosh is Director of the Baldwin Borough Public Library in South Hills. She has traveled extensively, combining her love of adventure with her love of photography to capture images that tell great stories of people and their culture. You know, Creative Non-Fiction was popularized right here at the University of Pittsburgh back in the 80’s. Christine will explain this seemingly contradictory term with a number of specially selected pieces that are bound to increase our enjoyment of this fascinating literary phenomenon.

Len Zapler

“Expand Your Genres: A Sampling For Your Reading Pleasure.” LI4262. Five Wednesdays from 10-11:50 a.m., commencing September 6th.

Asking the Right Questions

Errol Miller

Cathedral of Learning, Room 313, Thursday, July 12th, 1pm. Errol Miller raises his right hand, the one with the green cast (broken while playing tennis, we learn). “Everybody here? If you’re not here, raise your hand.” A murmer of laughter ripples through the room. In his inimitable fashion, he has called the class, “Questioning the Criminal Justice System”, to order.

Errol’s droll humor is again in evidence when he reminisces about his first criminal case. “I was appointed to represent a man accused of robbing the Mellon Bank at Chatham Center,” he says. “Originally the Court appointed the Reed, Smith law firm to represent him, but there was a conflict of interest because Mellon was the firm’s client. Therefore it could not also represent a man who had been accused of borrowing without interest and making a substantial withdrawal without penalty.” The class erupts in laughter.

Today one of our discussions centers on the efficacy of plea bargaining: the recognized need to keep the case-overloaded judicial system from clogging versus the possibility of innocent defendants having little choice but to plead guilty to avoid a draconian sentence.
Here’s the hypothetical posed by Errol. He says, “You’re young and black. You are arrested because there is evidence that seems to point to your guilt. You know you are innocent–that the police officer who will testify against you is lying. You know that the jury is predominately white, that in the past week five black teenagers have made the news for reasons that would not make their parents be proud. Your lawyer says, ‘You’re a terrific kid who could be admitted to Harvard Medical School and all of that, but let’s look at what we got today when we go to the jury. We got this policeman who says he found the fifty pounds of drugs on you. If you take the deal that’s being offered to you, you’ll be out in three years; if you don’t take the deal and go to a jury and you’re found guilty, you’ll be out in twenty years.’ Is it bad advice for his lawyer to tell him to take the deal? Is that justice? Does anybody think that’s justice? If you follow the stories of people who have been acquitted after long sentences because DNA has proven them innocent, a number of them even confessed although the evidence proved they didn’t do the crime. Is it important to keep the system moving when the system has some rotten aspects? What system can we devise to separate the guilty from the innocent in a better way?”

2:50 P.M. So many questions…so few answers. The course is a serious one and the subject matter can be depressing. Yet Errol somehow manages to bring rueful smiles to our faces, if only to acknowledge the old saw that in any system of human design, what can go wrong, will go wrong. As Errol put it, “Nothing seems to be working, although things are working better than they used to work.”

Len Zapler

***

Errol Miller is an impeccably credentialed attorney (Dartmouth undergrad, Harvard Law) of long standing. His practice over the past forty plus years has been mainly on the civil side (Estates and Trusts). While he has come to study the criminal justice system relatively recently, Errol is a quick study and possesses in spades that lawyer-like ability to see and articulate many sides of some very knotty issues bedeviling our criminal justice system. It is our good fortune to be on the receiving end of his insights and observations. I can imagine Errol teaching an OLLI course in Estates and Trusts, laced with forty years worth of stories to illustrate the points he makes. Now THAT would be fun.

Never Say Never Again

Pat “Picc” Picciarelli and Dave Shifren before start of class

GSPH Building, Room 115, Tuesday, July 3rd, 1pm. I’m here for the third class of the intriguingly titled course, “Never be Lied to Again,” or as one wag put it, how to become a human lie detector.

Instructor Patrick “Picc” Picciarelli is possibly the perfect poster person for the postulate that “Sixties are the new Fifties”: mustachioed, tanned, fit, un-tucked short sleeve shirt, jeans and loafers. Reminds me of Dennis Farina, except for the silver hair and mustache (Picc’s are brown). He’s about the same age as sharp dresser Farina, the Chicago ex-detective who played detective Joe Fontana on Law and Order for 2 seasons. If they haven’t replaced him yet, seems to me Picc would be spot on.

Class kicks off with a discussion of sociopathic characteristics of killers in some of the iconic murder cases. Picc motions toward a list of familiar names on the blackboard, begins to speak. He makes his points forcefully, with the conclusiveness of settled law.

“Take Jeffrey McDonald, O.J. Simpson, Scott Peterson. They’re psychopaths, but before they killed, they were sociopaths. They’re all good looking guys who lie about everything, don’t have a conscience. That’s the clinical definition of a sociopath. Sociopaths have a feeling that they’re smarter than anybody else. And if they’re good looking, the usual reaction we have to people like that is–to believe them. So they continue to lie and think that they can get away with it.”
That’s revelatory. Sociopaths must be pretty good actors, too. Apparently O.J. was good enough to get roles in B movies.

Picc discusses some of the rules that govern lie detection: don’t answer a question with a question, don’t ask that a simple yes or no question be repeated, don’t look away from the questioner, etc. Here’s one example: Say a detective asks you if you ever parked your car in a handicapped space when shopping at Walmart. The rule is, don’t say “never.” That kind of answer can get you into a world of trouble. Say, “I don’t think so”, or the ever popular “I don’t recall.” In the O.J. trial, prosecution witness detective Mark Furman stated categorically that he had “never” made racist remarks in his career. It didn’t take long for Johnny Cochran to come up with a video clip proving Furman “lied”. The prosecution’s case took a big hit on that screw-up.

OK then, I think. Picc says take this course and you’ll “never be lied to again.” What if, after the course you find out somebody has lied to you? Does it follow that Picc lied about the course? After all, he did say “never”.
Nah. It’s hyperbole, is what it is. Like what Mark Furman said. To be on the safe side maybe you ought to stick a “probably” in there before the “never”—but then I’m thinking, how many people would show up to take the class?

2:50pm. Class is over. Since my wife is also taking this class, I’d better start taking acting lessons on how to fake sincerity more convincingly.
Hey–just kidding—I’d never do that.

Len Zapler

***
Click here for Patrick Picciarelli biography.

PG Reporter Mike Fuoco’s Class Draws a Full House

Fuoco (left) Introducing Logan

Cathedral of Learning, Friday, June 29th, 10 am: It was time. Room 216 buzzed with anticipation as students filed in and found seats. The second session of Mike Fuoco’s class, “Covering Crime: Inside the Newspaper Police Beat” was about to begin. This time Fuoco would play second banana to his guest speaker, retired Detective Dennis Logan. Logan, whose record of closed cases had become the stuff of legend, was to spend an action-packed hour answering questions about some of the dramatic highlights and comedic hijinks in his career.

Logan is a compact, solidly built man with a courteous demeanor and a ready smile. His speech pattern is steeped in the vernacular of the mean streets he has walked all his life. Calling on questioners, his steady gaze communicates an implicit sincerity that he will respect their thoughts–a skill that has proven so effective in getting confessions. “You gotta get them to believe you understand how they feel…understand their motivations,” he says. “There’s a powerful human need to confide in someone.” And, the irony in “…getting a confession. It’s like a one-night stand. You love each other the night before and hate each other in the morning.”

Occasionally in contact on cases as they were moving up their respective food chains, they got to know each other. Noting Logan’s increasing success in clearing cases over the years, Fuoco approached his editor to lobby for an assignment to write a feature story on the detective.
“I thought, the time is right, he’s great in his job, he pulled himself up from poverty…I like a guy like that,” Fuoco recalled.

The project was green lighted. Over the next few months Fuoco accompanied Logan and his partner, Detective Rich McDonald, as they investigated crime scenes, interviewed suspects and witnesses and dealt with the countless details of criminal procedure. Their acquaintanceship ripened into a deeper respect for the others professionalism and character. Fuoco crafted the article, but he couldn’t put the story to bed. He explained, “Trouble was, I felt, that Denny hadn’t had a case of with the kind of notoriety that would illustrate his full powers.”

Then a crime occurred that had “sensational” written all over it. Eleven-year old Scott Drake was found murdered and sexually mutilated. The prime suspect was a 47 year-old homeless man, Joseph Cornelius.

Logan went to work on Cornelius. A day or so after Cornelius confessed, Fuoco debriefed Logan on his role in the events leading up to Cornelius’ interrogation and–in excruciating detail–the interrogation itself. When Logan had finished, Fuoco knew this was to be the case he would cite as a textbook example of Logan’s unique skills. Fuoco’s editor found the story so striking that she wanted more. She called him in and asked if he had any more anecdotes.

“It was the first time in my career that an editor ever told me to enlarge, not cut, a story. I had ten notebooks of material on the guy that I’d gathered over the past few months. My prayers had been answered,” Fuoco recounted. “The story, complete with a good lede and prominent photo of Dennis, was all set to run above the fold, but at the last minute, John Craig went instead with a story about newly installed spotlights on the Cathedral of Learning. And you know what? It didn’t look any different from before. So my baby–my story (The  Confessor: Dennis Logan is the unassuming Pittsburgh detective who gets murder suspects to speak the unspeakable)–got downsized. What’re you gonna do? He was the editor-in-chief.”

11:50am. Time was up. Applause for the two veterans filled room 216. You had to be there.

Next week: PG reporter and author Robert Dvorchak will discuss the Jeffrey Dahmer case. Mr. Dvorchak is the author of the book, “Milwaukee Massacre”, the story of the infamous serial-killer.

Len Zapler

Passage to India

In the Hidden Treasures of Western PA class last term, Linda Bosson and I learned about the Palace of Gold at New Vrindaban in the panhandle of West Virginia. We drove out there on Sunday and found a little bit of India. After about 15 miles of winding, two lane roads, passing farms, tiny towns and rolling hills, we came to the Palace of Gold, a monument to the founder of the global Hare Krishna movement. On a tour of the palace we learned about how it was built and how the International Society for Krishna Consciousness was founded by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada in 1966. After the tour we went to the temple arriving in time to observe some of the prayer service and stay for lunch, Sunday vegetarian lunch being an important part of the temple activities. We were made to feel welcome by the participants in the service, both Indian and Western adherents, who helped us understand some of what was happening. This is the lake at New Vrindaban.

We weren’t allowed to take pictures in the Palace and I was uncomfortable taking pictures in the Temple. Many photos of both the Temple and Palace can be found here.

Ruthe Karlin

Experiencing Tai Chi

“Relax and Sink.” At various times during the course of each class, our instructor Stan Swartz repeats this uber-mantra, the distilled essence of the venerable Chinese martial art of Tai Chi. Stan has been teaching Tai Chi for some 30 years now, and he knows whereof he speaks. His voice is one of gentle authority, a voice that belies a rock hard musculature. I found out, because I tried to push him off his stance, and in the process wound up stumbling and nearly falling. Bottom line: he knows how to relax and sink and I don’t. That is the “distilled essence” of why I am taking the course. But I am learning–learning the Tai Chi way to walk, to stand, to breath, and to develop a meditative awareness of my body. Learning these lessons should improve my balance, strengthen my bones and muscles, lower my blood pressure and raise my spirits. Well, the jury’s still out for me but contrary to my usual duck-like waddle, I AM doing a better job of walking with my feet pointing forward.

Stan’s ten week Tai Chi course has become so popular that a second session has been added to accommodate OLLI members eager to become proficient in this increasingly popular exercise form.

Len Zapler

More film class from Martha Harris

The unique aspect of David Shifren’s class ‘adaptation of fiction into
film’ is that we first talk about the story we read and afterwards the
film we saw.
The “The Greatest Gift” was changed from a flimsy, somewhat pallid
story into a film packed with action in “It’s A Wonderful Life”. The
essence of the character of George Bailey traveling from his wish to
never having been born, to non-existence, and back to life brought up
questions of suspended disbelief, casting, the characters’ change or
lack thereof, and for me, even an aspect of spirituality–George
Bailey’s heightened sense of understanding and appreciation of existence
by the end of the film.
In the short story “Rear Window” Jeff, an idle, incapacitated secluded
man sitting in his living room almost passively solves a murder. The
film gave us a sleuth (Jimmy Stewart) with a broken leg swiveling
around his living room in a wheelchair, a career on-hold, a love
connection, and humorous help from Thelma Ritter.
I expected to see a enactment similar to what I’d read, but
was happy to be wrong. These classes and our thoughtful
comments offer a new outlook on the process of adaptation.
Martha Harris
May 25, 2007

Dave Shifren’s Film Course

Dave Shifren (right) and Ron Freeman after their class “A Close Look at Crime”

I’m happy to report that the ever popular Dave Shifren is back, teaching a film course with a twist — “Adaptation: When Fiction turns to Film”. The classroom, in the Frick(n) Fine Arts building, is fitted and equipped to handle audio-visual presentations, all the better to make our viewing experience more pleasurable. Why, one lady in the back row even adjusted the seat in front of her so that she could stretch her legs on it.

The first film we critiqued was “High Noon,” the classic western that spawned so many pale imitations. Initially, we discussed the short story on which the film was based. What surprised me was that the movie was so unlike the original story (and that’s a good thing–I thought the story was pretty lame). Then we settled in to watch the movie. I’ve seen this film at least a half dozen times, but this time, with Dave’s coaching, I noticed many of the directorial, photographic, acting and other touches that made it unique. When the film was over we had a far-ranging discussion that covered everything from the casting to mise-en-scène to the argument that the movie was an allegory for the socio-political climate in the McCarthy era. Plenty of food for thought here, for sure. And for sure, later this week, I’m looking forward to the showing of Hitchcock’s home run, “Rear Window”. Raise the window, Aunt Minnie!