Does the name BOSE still stand for quality?

Ever bought a product from what you thought was a “stand up” company and after completing the purchase discover that the company was nearly impossible to deal with on any kind of rational level?  Recently my CD player died. My search of possible replacements led me to the BOSE WAVE System, because my generation knows, the very word BOSE means quality right? And besides, I figured when my sisters send me off to the “Home” I would have this great portable sound system that could go with me. I order the system, although, I must say I was slightly chagrined that Bluetooth technology was not built in feature  and is instead a $100 add-on. 

I am delighted when my new system arrives, however, the joy is dampened a bit when I see the dreadful words “Made in China”.  I open the Acoustic Wave System Box, next the box containing the 5-CD changer and last the small box containing the Connect Kit. In under an hour, I have the system unpacked and assembled, my favorite radio stations programmed, and I am listening to the demo CD. The sound is impeccable.

Ah what to listen to first, I put in a mix of CD’s and hit Random.  An hour into playing there is a crunching sound.   I remove one of the CD’ s, that has a brand new gash in it.  I recheck installation put in another CD into slot number 2 and CRUNCH GRINNNNNND the most gawd awful sound comes blaring through the speakers.   A second CD is destroyed.  Wow, the new CD player, brand new out of the box, straight from China is a CD destroyer.

I call BOSE, a very nice young man (#1) me to remove all CD’s  (I already had) tells me how to unplug the CD player and plug the power cord to the Wave unit (I already had) and instructs me to pack up the unit in its original packaging.   Next tells me how he is going to have UPS email me a pre-paid UPS label that I can put on the box and simply drop it off at my nearest UPS store, but oh wait, he can’t contact UPS until Monday because BOSE systems are down for maintenance so I will get the label early Monday afternoon at the latest. 

Monday afternoon I check my email, no sign of the magic label so I call in to BOSE when I finally get a rep (#2) on the line I am told that my email must not be accepting the emails that UPS is sending, please check the SPAM folder….I check no label, check the Trash folder, I check no label, well it must surely be my email because it has been sent and another will be sent out and I will receive it in two hours.   The scenario is repeated 2 more times on Monday. Young  man (#4) says wait a minute I think the rep before me sent a message to UPS that they should pick up the package from you.   NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That means I have to be at home for up to 3 days during all business hours waiting for the UPS truck to pull up that is why UPS is emailing me the label.

It is now after 7 PM on Monday and I know that in all likelihood UPS is not going to send me a return shipping label via email on this day.  Tuesday morning, I turn on my computer, no label from BOSE/UPS.  No label, call BOSE, rep says oh it must be your email is not accepting UPS labels.  At this point I have had it, I tell the young man on the phone that if I don’t have an email label by 5 PM this evening, I am boxing up all of the Wave components to ship back to BOSE, calling American Express to put a stop on payment. 

Tuesday, 1 PM, I get home from the dentist and there in my email box is a pre-paid UPS label.  Somehow that nasty email account of mine let this email come through (LMAO) to my Inbox.  I affix the label to the box and I am just about ready to leave for my next appointment of the day when the doorbell rings.  There stands a nice young woman from UPS with FOUR pre-paid labels to ship FOUR boxes back to BOSE. She was quite surprised to see that I already had a duplicate label of the ones she was delivering already on the box and asked if I had 3 more boxes!   It appears that all of the young men at BOSE have been requesting pick up labels instead of drop off labels (sent via email). 

I called BOSE and asked to speak to a supervisor, something they really don’t want you to do.  Once I had a young man on the phone that identified himself as a Supervisor, he would not let me talk.  His arrogance was really quite unbelievable.  All I wanted to tell him was that perhaps there was a programming error in that system maintenance software that had been loaded over the weekend and that something funky was happening when his reps requested a drop off label causing it to read on the other end at UPS as a pick up label.   Mr. Arrogance  did not want to hear what I had to say and instead explained to me that it was my email’s fault that I had not received the labels.   So this is how I am grading BOSE (please keep in mind I have had the product only a few days).

Quality on product  = D- (having to return a brand new product hours after receiving it BOOO)

Attempts to give good customer service:

            First Rep = A

            Second Rep = C

            Third Rep = C

            Fourth Rep = B

            Fifth Rep = A  (he actually gets the label to me)

            Supervisor = F

Recommendation to BOSE:   Maybe you should hire some detail oriented women who can actually provide Excellent Customer Service.

Postscript: Tuesday  afternoon: UPS showed up wanting to pick up 4 more boxes from me and the beat goes on....LOL

Postscript: Wednesday UPS again showed up wanting to pick up 4 more boxes from me and the beat goes on....LMAO I suspect I will see them a couple of more times this week.  

Postscript Thursday:  My shipment to UPS has been received and my replacement CD player is supposed to be delivered on Friday.  Praying that this one actually works.

Thoughts of an “Animal Hater”

Yesterday I was accused of being an animal “hater”.   There seems to be the presumption amongst animal lovers that if you don’t fawn all over their “animaux de la journée” there is something terribly wrong with you. For some reason they assume that I am going to be as attracted to their animal as they are and if I’m not there must be something terribly wrong with me.   These same people would never expect me to exhibit that kind of behavior towards a far more important life choice, like their current lover. 

The fact is that I do like some dogs, like Chester or Bella. Both of these dogs are well behaved and friendly.   Once they have greeted me they go about their “dog business”.   I have been a dog owner and loved my dogs dearly, the operative word here being “my”. I also have owned cats and enjoy their playfulness and intelligence.   What I don’t like is the fact that I am terribly allergic and after my last cat died I decided that breathing was something that I really liked doing.

Yet there are animal owners that are completely irresponsible and it is not that I dislike their animal but I do dislike them.   My neighbor across the street thinks it is just fine to let his dog use my yard as its personal toilet.   I really dislike that neighbor.   And the folks a couple of yards over that let their dogs out all day while they are at work and the dogs bark and bark and bark.  I think they are pretty crappy neighbors.  And the people the that bring their  dogs to public events and then don’t keep track of their whereabouts assuming that I am going to enjoy having their dog  slobber on my clothes, bump into my arm or chair when I am painting, or rub up against me leaving clumps of hair behind.

No, I am not an animal hater, but people well that is a different deal all together.

Several years ago while reading Abstract Expressionism I discovered a small volume Concerning the Spiritual in Art by Wassily Kandinsky , Russian painter, art theorist, and modern abstractionist. I know this is a core book in beginning art classes, however, at the time for me it was the entrance into a new way of thinking about objects, color, lines, and circles and their relationship to the soul. I was enraptured and inspired. To this day, I keep my dog eared, marked up copy close at hand even when I travel. Then I discovered Kandinsky: Complete Writings on Art and that pushed me even further into the realm of this extraordinary artist.

In early October of 2009 I discovered that the NYC Guggenheim as part of their 50th anniversary celebration had mounted, what has been heralded as a land mark exhibition, Kandinsky a full scale retrospective. At that point in time I also was facing the possibility of immediate unemployment, no matter, I had to see this exhibit. Kandinsky in the building that was designed to show his work, how could I not attend? Plans were made, plane ticket purchased, a hotel room reserved, I would see this exhibit!

After months of anticipation, January 9th arrived and I stood in the center of that magnificent Frank Lloyd Wright building, heart pounding, mind racing, about to descend into the art and soul of Kandinsky. The color, oh the color, the delicious mixture of pastels and primaries juxtaposed pulling, pushing, dancing from image to image. My eyes were filled with movement, circles within circles, and the exploration of infinity on a canvas. Then I was standing in front of Composition IX , an explosion of color, a modern symphony of rainbows. I hadn’t expected to find so many rainbows, yet there they were in painting after painting. The intensity of color, the haunting image, a door into the unconscious, Yellow, Red, Blue was stunning.

Every new image invoked a myriad of emotions. From my notebook:

After hearing the first public presentation of Prometheus by Arnold Schönberg Kandinsky was inspired Kandinsky to paint the Red Tuba and made him want to figure out a way to have lights hooked up to piano strings so that when music was played the colors would change...first conception of a laser light show to music?

I am sitting here crying, overwhelmed by the color in Black Lines. Purity of color, it is life at its happiest. I can hardly bear to leave it. No printed reproduction even comes close!

In watercolor rooms -- impossible to take in every image, there are so many, my brain is on fire.
Studies for many of the large works started here. Incredible!

Back in the main galleries – Black Arch –again the juxtaposition of pastels in the upper right to the dark blue in the lower left with the purple precariously balanced in between. How does he do it? Improvisation VI , oh my God what color, it is almost more than a person can see!

The entries go on for several pages. At times I found myself smiling, laughing inside at the pure joy of color, at other moments I was weeping, overwhelmed by the beauty, and at times tyranny the images provoked. Even re-visiting old friends like the 4 panels that Kandinsky painted for Edward R. Campbell that I have spent so much time gazing at in their home at MOMA felt brand new. To see this body of work was a rare privilege and has proven to me again that there are just some things in life that I have to do.

For me, this show was food for the soul, nourishment for the spirit, and inspiration to go on with my painting. To be able to feast my eyes on such images proves to me again that I do indeed live a charmed life. Thank you Mr. Kandinsky, thank you Guggenheim!

Note: First I want to thank friends Mary and Teresa for sharing this experience.
Second, through the years I have been inspired by Kandinsky. To see some of the paintings that were completed while reading his books please visit my Inspired by Kandinsky Album at

http://picasaweb.google.com/elainem64/InspiredbyKandinsky#

My addiction

After watching the cable channel SYFY broadcast of Alice this week I went searching for my Alice in Wonderland. I found the small volume tucked away on a shelf housing other books, gifts from my childhood. On the inside cover I found inscribed “To Elaine, from Mother and Dad Christmas 1954.” It is an inexpensive plain little book with an orange cloth spine and yellow cardboard stamped cover. It probably wouldn’t impress most kids today. The black and white Tenniel illustrations are sparse and strange; the pages have yellowed with age and based on the way I have been sneezing, it is jam packed with book dust.

It is hard to imagine how many times this book and its companions (some assorted Bobbsey Twins adventures, Little Women, Little Men, Nancy Drew mysteries, the Three Musketeers and a few other assorted titles) have been packed and unpacked during the last 55 years. They have lived in the mountains, in the dessert and now they reside in the mid-West. They are my constant companions and serve as the cornerstone of my extensive private library. Looking at them, I wonder did my parents, uncles and aunts know that their Christmas gifts would continue to be treasured more than a half century later. Did they know that they were feeding my book addiction?

As addictions go it is a fine one to have. While some addictions make you fat, and others fry your brain, my addiction has transported me through worlds where I have made friends, loved, laughed, hated, smiled, solved mysteries with the finest, chased spies across continents, felt like fly on the wall reading intimate scenes of Eudora Welty novel. And those magnificent hours spent exploring page after page of beautiful art books or reading aloud Wordsworth, Dickinson and Ferlinghetti are priceless. My addiction has expanded my world a billion fold. And yet, once read I am hard pressed to discard, donate, or give-away a book that has touched me, leaving me surrounded in my house by books.

My family and friends know me well, with Christmas coming I know that there will be at least one new book under the tree for me. There is nothing quite like opening a new unread book for the first time and for a few fleeting moments I will be nine again, and the book will strike the same heartfelt chord of joy experienced the first time I received a book for Christmas
The smell of the ink, the smooth touch of the pages, words blended into never before read sentences — an absolute aphrodisiac for the book addict!

May the season message of Peace be yours throughout the holiday season and in the year to come.

My brief encounter with Julia Child

I just came home from seeing Julie & Julia. What a terrific movie it made me laugh and cry and gave me an insatiable hankering for something totally decadent laden with BUTTER!

Mostly though, it reminded me of a day that I was sitting in my office when my boss stuck his head in the door and said, "Come take a ride with me". Immediately the worse jumped into my head, I nervously grabbed my purse and out the door we went all the time I was wondering if I had done something so bad that we could not talk about it in the office.

Once we were in Ron's SUV I asked him where we were going. He flashed his infectious smile, and said we are on our way to Crown Center to meet Julia Child! She was in KC promoting a book and doing a signing at Halls. I couldn't believe my good fortune. I have to confess that my heart was truly pounding as I asked the grand dame to sign a book that I would give as a gift to my dear friend Mattie. I remember Child being larger than life, gracious and very tall. Thank you Ron for providing me with such a great memory; it is one I cherish to this day.

Now in which of these boxes that are waiting to be unpacked is my copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking hiding in?

P. S. The old Julia Child cooking shows are being re-run on one of the KCPT digital channels....watching ones makes me appreciate the Meryl Streep performance all the more.

Stuff

Then stuff that dreams are made of....stuff, clutter, too much stuff, where did all that stuff come from, what is stuff, what is that stuff?

Discarding books from my library, discarding things from house, the act of discarding is distressing, determining what to do do with stuff, afraid that if I toss it I may be tossing some cherished memory. And what of the stuff that came from loving friends and family, tarnished, torn, worn, stuff, but each item at one time carefully chosen and given and received with love. And what of books that have been schlepped from place to place for decades, is it really time to end their journey....all difficult decisions.

I'd rather be at a movie.