Earl and I are both licensed Realtors® in Michigan; and, while I don’t practice real estate, I’m always interested in what’s happening in the profession. Especially now, for these are difficult times.

So it was with great shock that I read an email sent to everyone in the Michigan Association of Realtors® this afternoon. Thirty-three year old Troy VanderStelt, a Realtor® with Nexes Realty in Muskegon (a community maybe two hundred miles up the road), was fatally wounded two days ago by a “former client allegedly disgruntled over a real estate transaction.”

I never met Mr. VanderStelt, and I don’t know if he was a reputable Realtor® or not. Regardless, this is the ultimate transaction gone awry; and it makes me recall other situations where the Realtor’s® life was in danger. The one that comes to mind most readily was the situation where an agent holding an open house was assaulted and eventually found dead in the back yard of the home.

You wouldn’t think real estate would be a lethal profession; but the truth is emotions run high when people are selling their homes. To them, the house in question holds great memories; and there’s a dollar value attached to them. At the same time, the prospective buyer sees only a piece of real estate; and this is really as it should be. The trick is to help the seller realize that memories are in the eye of the beholder.

I don’t know if Mr. VanderStelt’s killer was a residential or commercial client. Not that it mitigates guilt either way. What I do know is that, in these troubled economic times, real estate is suffering; not only from the outside with media analysis of how dire the situation is but also from the inside with clients who feel ill served. I only hope other clients won’t go as far as Mr. VanderStelt’s assailant did.

Last night, Earl and I attended the local community theater production of “Cabaret.” It’s an ambitious musical, calling for a considerable cast and also for the audience to understand the historical context of 1930 Berlin. I’m not sure this production delivered on either count. But it certainly made every effort.

I’m not interested in critiquing the production; rather I’m more interested in analyzing the concept behind many musicals today. Originally, musicals advanced the story line through song and dance, rather than through serious exposition. This still holds true. But the story lines have gotten darker, the song and dance more intense, the staging more theatrical.

Often, the musical is used to explore themes that would otherwise be extremely uncomfortable for the audience. There are countless examples, “Cabaret” being only one. This show really explores the rise of Nazism in pre-World War II Germany under the guise of entertainment in a seedy nightclub. It more than hints at the campaign against Jews that became a hallmark of the Third Reich.

“Rent,” the rock opera musical of the 1990s, which is a re-working of Italian Giacomo Puccini’s “La Boheme,” explores the world of AIDS when the world was reluctant to explore it. And “Spring Awakening,” the 2007 Tony Award winner for best musical, explores morality and sexuality in a rock and roll context. Ironically, the inspiration for a show that reveals sexual intercourse and uses the F-word in a riveting song was written as a novel in the 1890s by a German who was decrying the lack of communication between parents and children regarding sex, teenage self-discovery, and responsibility for one’s actions. The book was banned at the time.

Then there is “Wicked,” the exploration of what happened before Dorothy dropped in. If you’ve seen the musical, you know it’s really about good and evil and how each is presented to us, making good choices difficult.

Usually, musicals are upbeat in the first act and somber in the second. Consider the well-known productions of “West Side Story,” “South Pacific,” or even that treacly favorite “The Sound of Music.” The first is a retelling of the tragedy “Romeo and Juliet”; the second is a polemic against racism well hidden in the boisterous songs; and the third is another hint at what Nazi Germany had in store for many of its citizenry.

In the end, I was disappointed in the local production of “Cabaret,” but it has certainly stimulated my thought processes regarding the value of musical theatre. So I came away inspired after all.

At last I feel vindicated! For years I’ve thought the concept of multitasking was overrated and the people who bragged of their abilities to do it were mostly in love with the word itself.

Now comes an article in The New Atlantis that reports on several books and research studies on the subject. Collectively, they argue that multitasking is not as productive as we’ve been led to believe. It’s also not the hallmark of a serious intellectual. Of course, I’ve glommed onto this article, titled “The Myth of Multitasking,” with the passion of singular focus.

It cites Lord Chesterfield who wrote in the 1740s, “There is time enough for everything in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once, but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time.” Fast forwarding to our own era, multitasking is defined as “the human attempt to do simultaneously as many things as possible, as quickly as possible, preferably marshalling the power of as many technologies as possible.” Lord Chesterfield would cringe.

The New Atlantis article mentions several books decrying multitasking. CrazyBusy by psychiatrist Dr. Edward Hallowell offers therapies to combat it. In fact, he says, “Multitasking is a mythical activity in which people believe they can perform two or more tasks simultaneously.” The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss examines “single-tasking.” And a research study funded by Hewlett-Packard and conducted by the Institute of Psychiatry at the University of London found, “Workers distracted by email and phone calls suffer a fall in IQ more than twice that found in marijuana smokers.” I’m not sure how marijuana smokers were chosen as the basis of comparison.

The article is lengthy, detailed, and requires concentration, but it’s well worth reading for such statements as: “Multitasking adversely affects how you learn,” “Limiting multitasking is essential,” and “Steady attention was the default condition of a mature mind.”

Finally the article’s author, Christine Rosen, ends with this statement: “When people do their work only in the ‘interstices of their mind-wandering,’ with crumbs of attention rationed out among many competing tasks, their culture may gain in information, but it will surely weaken in wisdom.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.