Albany isn't Wyoming

We learned this weekend that Albany is not Wyoming and that it is closer to Broadway than one might think.

A local state lawmaker, Jack McEneny, made the point about Albany and Wyoming after a performance of "The Laramie Project'' at Albany High School today. The play is about the 1998 hate-crime murder of University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard, who was gay.

During a discussion after the performance, McEneny responded to a suggestion that Albany has similar intolerance problems by pointing out that New York has a hate-crime law that adds penalties onto infractions that have an aspect of bias to them.

He also took the opportunity to point out that the fault lines on homosexual rights in New York now is on the gay-marriage issue. The Assembly has passed a bill legalizing the unions, but whether the Senate will pass the measure, which Gov. David Paterson has promised to sign, remains unclear.

On the other geographical question concerning Albany, it seemed closer than 150 miles (the actual distance) to Broadway yesterday when we saw a local production of "My Fair Lady,'' where the leads could have given Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn a run for their money.

It was also a good way to ease into the more serious issues of bias and prejudice in the "Laramie'' show.

Finally, a last word about volcanoes. Buffalo friend Peter Reese corrected me about the cause of the year with no summer.

"Hey dude, Krakatoa blew its top in 1883,'' he told me. "The year with no summer was the result of the eruption of Tambora in 1815, the largest of the modern era. (The nineteenth century was a bad time to live next to a volcano.)''

Shouldn't "Nineteenth Century'' be capitalized?