I am arriving at the Civic Center BART station and rolling toward the elevator, my niece Eva and her boyfriend Patrick in tow, when I realize something is wrong. There is that sense of an out of body experience, or maybe too much of the wrong drugs in the 1960s, now making itself felt…or maybe just the effects of not have gotten out quite enough recently… but something is wrong. 

Or maybe right. Because the unhoused, unwashed and unloved are not visible on the platform. Nor are their syringes. Also, the scuffed and splintering plywood that has concealed putative station improvements has vanished. Instead, there are two new flights of stairs, the stone fresh on the treads and litter absent. It looks like we are in a modern, affluent city. The once and future San Francisco. And in an instance, I know what’s happening. APEC.

The city has been all aflutter over the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. And part of that fluttering involves a healthy dose of skepticism. The thing won’t bring enough business ($30 million) to make a dent in the economy. All the urban cleanup and lockup (of the unhoused) will only last a few days. And the impact on public transport and surface roads will mess things up for days in this small dense city. Not to mention the expense at a time when the urban budget is stretched more than ever. So the arguments go.

I have been apologizing to both of them for dragging us all to the San Francisco Opera. On offer today: Omar, a new work, in maybe its fourth or American production. Jane and I have season tickets. Stephen, our opera composer friend, thought the work looked promising. And I’m sure it did. Three hours later, I am still apologizing, this time for Omar itself. Jane met us at the opera house. And now she’s going to meet us at home, having walked out after the first act. Which I quite understood. 

Omar really was a waste of an afternoon. What was wrong? Well, to paraphrase a review by Robert Benchley written decade ago, the scenery was beautiful but the singers kept getting in the way. And to put a finer point on things, nothing wrong with the cast. It’s the composition. Embarrassing. I don’t know where to begin. But I will return to the scenery. It really was beautiful. Enormously clever projections seamlessly interwoven with physical sets. I really liked watching the thing, except that I was three hours older by the time it was done. And a little too happy to be heading home.

Truth is, I sign up for just about anything on stage. Particularly plays. And even with shows I don’t like, it’s usually fun to argue their pluses and minuses. I mean a valiant attempt is generally better than no show at all. But truly, I wish I had been a no-show at Omar. Rhiannon Giddens, well known and accomplished in other genres, utterly failed in this instance. Not that there wasn’t a decent melody in act one. But not only does that not add up to an opera, it doesn’t help to have lyrics that are borderline embarrassing. OK, enough already.

The real action is in Old Street, hard by the Barbican, right at the edge of the City of London. I am into the eighth of Mick Herron’s MI5 ouvre. The guy is a master. And I am so enthused, look for me to sign up for the intelligence services any day now. When it comes to intelligence, we need all we can get.

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