Yesterday, the opera was not an opera, but Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem Mass. It is dramatic certainly (the Dies Irae alone takes 40 minutes to perform, and the whole mass is only an hour and a half), and Verdi was criticized for makng it “too dramatic,” but if you can’t be dramatic about death, what can you be dramatic about?
Three Substack writers this weekend posted articles which are profound, too much so to ignore any of them. Joyce Vance writes about Treump**’s latest threat of violence. Robert Hubbell writes about the real purpose of government, including quoting Lucian Truscott on the subject. And Heather Cox Richardson writes abot Russian disinformation, and how it it Russia’s strongest weapon against Ukraine, and also against us insofar as it affects our electoral process. I hate to be grim on what should be a joyous holiday – but unfortunately we can’t afford to ignore reality.
Senator Ron Wyden (the other Democratic Senator from Oregon) is asking questions which need to be asked – and answered – and that very publicly.
Yesterday, Trinette came by. She came straight from the hairdresser, and looked great (not the she doesn’t always.) She took out my recyclables, and, because I have now cleared as space from old boxes which is large nough to work with, vacuumed that space.once I move another piece of furniture (a table) partly into that stace, iI’ll gain access to some other areas which need to be cleared out. And I did listen to the opera, which was Gounod’s “Roméo et Juliette.” You’ve probably heard part of it – for years (and for all I know, maybe still) there couldn’t be a Miss America pageany without some young soprano singing it. I don’t dislike the opera, but I’m also not passionate about it. I hear it as elevator music. Pleasant to listen to, but not memorable. The people in the Met audience had a much higher opinion – the applause was deafening. I’m glad of that. All the major-[art singers are nice people, did a great job, and deserve credit.
Apparently I am not the last living American who doesn’t hate Merrick Garland. Joyce Vance doesn’t either. And, being a lawter, including a former DOJ prosecutor, she has some words. (For another view, here’s a gift link)
Public schools (and public prisons) are the most obvious examples of how privatization hurts everyone (except the owners of the businesses which bleed government. ITPI (In The Public Interest) is the watchdog group which monitors abuses of privatization (not that every example isn’t an abuse.) Their newsletters are often long and in fine print, difficult to read (because there is so much privatization.) This example is so egregious that they limited this newsletter to it alone.
Yesterday, I did listen to Turandot after all. Of course it was lovely – but I was also fascinated to observe that the Met’s announcer as well as the steeped-in-opera expert who seerves as her sidekick (you know that opera which the listeners voted on a few weeks ago? Well, he was at that performance when it happened. And was an adult at the time) both pronounced the name of the opera “Turandot” but the singers pronounced it “Turandough.” I believe “Turandough is more technically correct, based on a letter Puccini wrote suggesting that pronunciation, but I do like the sound of “Turandot” better myself. Not that it really matters. Oh, the conductor was the first Ukrainian, and therefore also the first Ukrainian woman, to conduct at the Met. Aside from that, I basically just laid out (in tiny bottles) my meds for the next two weeks. Boring, but it has to be done.
I am not deliberately seeking for Women’s History month stories which are also Black History – I just keep running into them, and they’re good ones.
Heaven knows I cannot generally recommend the New York Times for journalism, but this appears to have some valuable information. Hopefully you won’t be negatively affected by all the eye-blinking in the caricatures.
Yesterday, I got very little done. Most of what I accomplished was clearing a way to the best seat to watch the actual television from – now that it’s working again. Escept that when it came time, the heavy snow we’ve has the last two days had mangled the signal so badly I couldn’t watch Fortunately , “Dead Man Walking” will be streamed through Passport – but the streams don’t start until the 19th. I was hoping not to have to wait. (I’ve already waited over 20 years just to hear it.) So, yes, this is skimpy. And i’ll have listened to Turandot and been grateful.
I missed “Pi Day,” so this is a bit late. And this parody is a bit over 8 minutes (about the same as the original IIRC) but it’s worth every second of your time that it takes. It’s upbeat, but it made me reach for a hanky It says, in a dfferent way, so much of what I have been feeling. (I even put it into my email signature.)
If you’ve been wondering why suddenly TikTok is neeing named in bills and voted on in the House, and now going to the Senate, this should make it pellucidly clear.
Yesterday, I looked up the radio opera for tomorrow, which is Puccini’s “Turandot.” It’s a lovely opera, with very effective music, including “Nessun dorma,” which became Pavarotti’s signature aria, and has been recorded now by almost evereyone (I’ve even heard a recording of Sarah Brightman singing it.) But tonight, Rocky Mountain PBS will air Jake Heggie’s “Dead Man Walking,” starting at 8:00 pm and running until 11:00 pm. And that I just cannot miss. It is part of the Live in HD series, so it was recorded in October, and will be the same cast I heard in January. The three leading women I know well, and have not just heard but also seen them all, two of them in person, but I had to look up the bass/baritone. This is kind of a signature role of his. He spent some years corresponding with a death row prisoner in Texas – until the man suicided after SCOTUS turned his last appeal down. So I may end up sleeping though all or part of “Turandot” after all. We shall see.
Mary Trump writes about the Hur hearing. There are video clps all over of Jerry Nadler and Jamie Raskin handing Hur his posterior – you have probably seen some. Eric Swalwell and Adam Schiff also got in on the act. Enjoy.
Although he technically is, being a human male over 18, I hate even seeing Kyle Rittenhouse called a “man,” To me, “little punk” is more appropriate.
I’m linking this instead of embedding it … but it’s only a minute. It’s a new ad made by VoteVets, and they have managed somehow to get Fox to commit to airing it on Fox & Friends (one of TSF’s favorite shows.) So backlash can be expected. I applaud VoteVets for doing this.
Yesterday, President Biden sent his budget to Congress – a trifling $7.3 trillion. I wouldn’t count on Congres, particularly the House, to act constructively. Also, I learned VP Harris will visit Colorado today. No, I won’t be there, but I expect to get a report from CPR today or tomorrow. And I found a link to the one-woman show about Ann Coulter. It was made in 2020, and will be available through 2026. It runs abou an hour and 53 minutes. If you have never seen it, you may want to – and if you have seen it, you may want to see it again.
Off topic, but, if you havent, please check out the open thread for March 9 – there’s news about Carrie (not, sadly good).
I don’t doubt this would make a lot of people angry – if they would see it – which they probably won’t. “Le secret des grandes fortunes sans cause apparente est un crime oublié, parce qu’il a été proprement fait” – Balzac – usually quoted in English as “Behind every great fortune lies a great crime.”
If you ever read “The 19th Magazine”, or if you saw this article in their newsletter, you instantly knew I would use it. Women’s History, Black History, even music history, all in one piece – of course I would.
Yesterday, the radio opera was Verdi’s “La Forza del Destino.” If you ever hear someone claim that opera has far-fetched, hard to believe, plots, this may be the one they are thinking of. It starts with the heroine planning to elope, since her father disapproves of her suitor. The suitor is a bit late, and, unfortunately, the father bursts into her room before they have left. He threatens the suitor, who responds by attempting to prove he is not an enemy by disarming. But the gun goes off (in the script he drops or throws it to the floor, which sets it off; this production is less clear about what happens.) And the unintended bullet kills her father, who, as he dies, curses his daughter. I used to say “And from there it just gets more unlikely.” Today I wouldn’t claim it gets less likely – however, it certainly doesn’t get any more likely either. The opera is not performed all that often, not because it isn’t popular (it is), but because the soprano part is at least as difficult as anything in opera, even Wagner’s operas, and Leontyne Prices just don’t turn up every day. There are excerpts from it which are frequently recorded separately – arias for the soprano and the tenor, a male chorus with soprano obligato, a duet with the tenor and the baritone – all of which are in different ways heartbreakingly beautiful.
Just a little exercise in “compare and conatrast” here:
“Not since President Lincoln and the Civil War have freedom and democracy been under assault at home as they are today…. History is watching. If the United States walks away, it will put Ukraine at risk. Europe is at risk. The free world will be at risk, emboldening others to what they wish to do us harm.” [President Joseph Biden, State of the Union Address, March 7, 2024]
“Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation We, even we here, hold the power and bear the responsibility.” [president Abraham Lincoln – Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862]
I did not watch or listen to the Republican response (can you blame me?), and, although some of this article has been “translated,” shall we say, it’s probably all we need to know about it.
Well, this is bad news for anyone with allergies who has ambitions of traveling into space! But I’m sure glad they found it out this way and not in use.
So sorry I’m late. I had it ready bot forgot to post. Yesterday, the radio opera was Verdi’s “Ernani,” an early work, in a historic broadcast from 1962. For at least the last three years, the Met has been setting aside one broadcast for a historic performance, and they ask listeners to vote for whhich of ten or a dozen they would like to hear. I didn’t vote for “Ernani,” but I’m not surprised it won, because Leontyne Price. And the three male stars are equally prestigious to anyone who was listening to opera in the sixties. However, I voted for “Der Freischutz,” simply because one never hears it these days. But “Ernani” is almost as rare, and probably more interesting. One of the roles, the baritone, represents someone who actually lived and made history, though whether he was ever in love with Wlvira, or even whether she existed is doubtful. But Charles, Holo Roman Emperor, the fifth of that name, did exist, and was elected to that post by an “Electoral College” – a standing one, comprising princes (heads of state) of the countries within the empire. Charles, and Ernani (the tenor, an outlaw, as much due to politics as to poverty), and da Silva (the bass, a Spanish nobleman, and Elvira’s guardian) are all three in love with Elvira, who loves only Ernani. The character who strikes me as different from other characters in this opera, and indeed from most characters in opera is da Silva, who seems to think he’s Rodney Dangerfield, but unlike Dangerfield he means it seriously. I see no signs of him actually being persecuted – he just doesn’t always get his way (and who does?) But that victim mentality – almost a complex – may at least partially explain why he is so malicious. A play by Victor Hugo was the inspiraton for the opera.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince-elector
Phillis Wheatley was America’s first black woman poet. This article picks her up at the auction at which she was sold upon arrival – which was pretty consequential – and goes from there, as does the book, with vatious little-known information. IMO she deserves to better known, and not just her name.
This is a segment from The Young Turks featuring a doctor discussing Trump**’s inability to produce the correct word for the context. No, it won’t convince any of his cultists. But what interested me was his use of the term “brain damage.” Virgil has brain damage with far less symptoms than Trump**) and he and I both know how he got it – he got it from a traumatic brain injury (TBI). TBIs are often closed head injuries, as Virgil’s was but not always, but in any case it’s unlikely that one would experience one and have no idea that something had happened. How else could one damage one’s brain? Drugs would be one. Some condition which involved anoxia could. Could some or all of these symptoms go back to his bout of CoViD-19, for which he was hospitalized? I’m no doctor, but I would say absolutely. There is increasing evidence that even mild CoViD-19 can cause damage to the brain.
