Thursday, July 14, 2005
Unlike many of the indulgences of Puccini and Verdi, Mozart’s operas require an introduction: Not only are they long, but they are musically complex. Now, as the world celebrates the 250th anniversary of his birth, I feel compelled to understand his music and its plots, but also the times in which they were written and why they are great.
So I’ve started taking this on-line course about Mozart’s operas. I’m finding that though he wrote music for a plethora of venues, opera was his preferred and the inspiration for his greatest music.
What I’m also realizing is that nobody, but nobody, in the history of music, could use aria to move a story forward like he did. Who else can set into motion the complex plot of “The Magic Flute” with one short aria – the queen of the night demanding he rescue of her daughter. Portraying a seemingly sweet, then neurotic and obsessive compulsive control freq, the Queen of the Night - in the span of 5 minutes – convinces two rather disparate personalities to embark on a tortured journey to save her daughter. (Apparently, his cousin was the reigning diva of the day – during the times of opera seria – and wrote many of his most famous roles for her; including runs requiring the singer to hit 5 high Fs in the Magic Flute.)
So he is one of the only surviving opera composers of his time. Opera seria, by historical standards, was shit. Music was written for the moment, and infamously bowed to the whims of the divas, who were so bold as to interrupt a composers piece with their favorite aria.
But Mozart survived, despite this. His music became the standard for future composers. History kept him beside her.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. I’m learning more and more about his genius (and his great comedies) and what has come to be some of the most oft-performed music in history.
More to come. . . . (God help you – forgive me, we all have to have our passions, you know)
So I’ve started taking this on-line course about Mozart’s operas. I’m finding that though he wrote music for a plethora of venues, opera was his preferred and the inspiration for his greatest music.
What I’m also realizing is that nobody, but nobody, in the history of music, could use aria to move a story forward like he did. Who else can set into motion the complex plot of “The Magic Flute” with one short aria – the queen of the night demanding he rescue of her daughter. Portraying a seemingly sweet, then neurotic and obsessive compulsive control freq, the Queen of the Night - in the span of 5 minutes – convinces two rather disparate personalities to embark on a tortured journey to save her daughter. (Apparently, his cousin was the reigning diva of the day – during the times of opera seria – and wrote many of his most famous roles for her; including runs requiring the singer to hit 5 high Fs in the Magic Flute.)
So he is one of the only surviving opera composers of his time. Opera seria, by historical standards, was shit. Music was written for the moment, and infamously bowed to the whims of the divas, who were so bold as to interrupt a composers piece with their favorite aria.
But Mozart survived, despite this. His music became the standard for future composers. History kept him beside her.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. I’m learning more and more about his genius (and his great comedies) and what has come to be some of the most oft-performed music in history.
More to come. . . . (God help you – forgive me, we all have to have our passions, you know)
Connecticut
So I’m out on a business trip. I flew into the White Planes airport, went out to the street to wait for my car to take me away to my hotel.
For those of you who have not been to CT before, it’s home to many of these small, weird analytical firms (one I work for among them) and more so, America’s oldest money -New England. So waiting for the car to pick me up, I saw more Mercedes, BMWs, Porshes, and other exotic, expensive European cars (not a Cadillac in sight).
So off to the hotel I go. . . an hour drive through New York’s most elite suburbs and the discrete corporate parks that line the Hutch along Connecticut.
Today was my last day of training on the statistical analyses done here -- thank God -- but am staying an additional day to meet and mingle with people. . . getting to know the firm. In any other circumstance, this trip would have bored me out of my mind: the co-worker and fellow new hire staying in this hotel is not only physically disgusting (it’s difficult to have a conversation with him without staring at a protruding brown tooth) but dreadfully boring and arrogant. Trying to come up with excuses not to dine with him in the evenings required a couple Oscar award-winning performances. So I’ve tried to keep a low profile and get some work done in my room in the evenings.
You see, this training could not have come at a worse time: the client needs modeling results by the end of the month and I’ve had to work out of my room in the evenings to get results to the client manager the following AM.
This is, of course, all until Rob calls and comes down from New York for drinks: We would go out to the gay bars here in Stamford and Norwalk. (I’m just trying to find out a way to expense it!) And, just like the old days, I would drag myself into work the next morning with a raging hangover.
The old days. . . God, I miss it in this neck of the woods!
So I’m out on a business trip. I flew into the White Planes airport, went out to the street to wait for my car to take me away to my hotel.
For those of you who have not been to CT before, it’s home to many of these small, weird analytical firms (one I work for among them) and more so, America’s oldest money -New England. So waiting for the car to pick me up, I saw more Mercedes, BMWs, Porshes, and other exotic, expensive European cars (not a Cadillac in sight).
So off to the hotel I go. . . an hour drive through New York’s most elite suburbs and the discrete corporate parks that line the Hutch along Connecticut.
Today was my last day of training on the statistical analyses done here -- thank God -- but am staying an additional day to meet and mingle with people. . . getting to know the firm. In any other circumstance, this trip would have bored me out of my mind: the co-worker and fellow new hire staying in this hotel is not only physically disgusting (it’s difficult to have a conversation with him without staring at a protruding brown tooth) but dreadfully boring and arrogant. Trying to come up with excuses not to dine with him in the evenings required a couple Oscar award-winning performances. So I’ve tried to keep a low profile and get some work done in my room in the evenings.
You see, this training could not have come at a worse time: the client needs modeling results by the end of the month and I’ve had to work out of my room in the evenings to get results to the client manager the following AM.
This is, of course, all until Rob calls and comes down from New York for drinks: We would go out to the gay bars here in Stamford and Norwalk. (I’m just trying to find out a way to expense it!) And, just like the old days, I would drag myself into work the next morning with a raging hangover.
The old days. . . God, I miss it in this neck of the woods!
Thursday, July 07, 2005
The last seven days seem to be particularly newsworthy and I’m beginning to see a pattern, don’t you? Kicking off the Independence Day weekend was the news that Justice O’Conner is going to retire, a decision by myself on this whole father situation, visiting my parents, and now a terrorist attack on London.
Okay, there couldn’t be any more disparate events but think of it like I do. . . .
Pride weekend was the other weekend and Justice O’Conner’s court, having just handed gays protection under the constitution, witnesses her first transgender drag queen parading down Pennsylvania Avenue in a pair of lace panties and a bullet bra and holding a sign saying “Dykes for Christ”. “Screw it.” She thinks to herself. “I really don’t want to go down in history as being the Shepard in these types of social issues.” So before departing on her summer break, she resigns. Not wanting to hand deliver her resignation to the White House, she sends her message on a pigeon living in the Romanesque columns of the Supreme Court building. After a couple of missed shots by Kerry and Kennedy en route, the pigeon finally lands at the White House. Bush does a little dance around the Oval office.
So I, traveling to the airport, hear of this news of the resignation and am frightened. Our pigeon friend is then shot dead by Rumsfeld (having entered restricted air space). I then begin to fear my flight to California would suffer the same fate. “Courage”, I think to myself and get on the plane to Nowhereland, USA to visit my parents.
Reading more and more about O’Conner over the weekend and what she meant to the Supreme Court’s balancing right and left, then going for a run in the mountains to see my parents’ neighbors’ signs from the Bush – Cheney campaign, I decide something must be done to serve as an intellectual cross-current to this right revolution now seeming to sweep America. “Children” Yes, children: The left must multiply and plant the seeds for a takeover. Must reproduce faster then the right! It was then I decide that not only do I want to help my cousin and her partner start a family, but that it has now become my moral obligation to this country to multiply. I talk it all over with my parents and decided to go for it.
The terrorists get wind of Bush’s strengthening hand with the Supreme Court nominee, but also of us tenacious American citizens’ plot to depose him through gays impregnating lesbians. A “fairy” boom, if you will. Not knowing what to do with their suicide mission – while the American Fairy Boom movement is not exactly with them, it is not exactly against them either -- they are perplexed, but ultimately decide to let the Fairy Boom plan materialize. But they need to send their eager suicide bombers somewhere. The English speak American, Right? And are the next best thing . . .
. . . to be continued
Okay, there couldn’t be any more disparate events but think of it like I do. . . .
Pride weekend was the other weekend and Justice O’Conner’s court, having just handed gays protection under the constitution, witnesses her first transgender drag queen parading down Pennsylvania Avenue in a pair of lace panties and a bullet bra and holding a sign saying “Dykes for Christ”. “Screw it.” She thinks to herself. “I really don’t want to go down in history as being the Shepard in these types of social issues.” So before departing on her summer break, she resigns. Not wanting to hand deliver her resignation to the White House, she sends her message on a pigeon living in the Romanesque columns of the Supreme Court building. After a couple of missed shots by Kerry and Kennedy en route, the pigeon finally lands at the White House. Bush does a little dance around the Oval office.
So I, traveling to the airport, hear of this news of the resignation and am frightened. Our pigeon friend is then shot dead by Rumsfeld (having entered restricted air space). I then begin to fear my flight to California would suffer the same fate. “Courage”, I think to myself and get on the plane to Nowhereland, USA to visit my parents.
Reading more and more about O’Conner over the weekend and what she meant to the Supreme Court’s balancing right and left, then going for a run in the mountains to see my parents’ neighbors’ signs from the Bush – Cheney campaign, I decide something must be done to serve as an intellectual cross-current to this right revolution now seeming to sweep America. “Children” Yes, children: The left must multiply and plant the seeds for a takeover. Must reproduce faster then the right! It was then I decide that not only do I want to help my cousin and her partner start a family, but that it has now become my moral obligation to this country to multiply. I talk it all over with my parents and decided to go for it.
The terrorists get wind of Bush’s strengthening hand with the Supreme Court nominee, but also of us tenacious American citizens’ plot to depose him through gays impregnating lesbians. A “fairy” boom, if you will. Not knowing what to do with their suicide mission – while the American Fairy Boom movement is not exactly with them, it is not exactly against them either -- they are perplexed, but ultimately decide to let the Fairy Boom plan materialize. But they need to send their eager suicide bombers somewhere. The English speak American, Right? And are the next best thing . . .
. . . to be continued
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
On a flight to my parents’ or the Fourth of July weekend. So I’m trapped on a four hour flight to L.A. where I catch another flight to Fresno, then off to take another flight to Coarsegold.
It’s aesthetically beautiful, I should not complain. They have a home larger than five of my apartments on a 10- acre lot and a view of the mountains. But without nothing but my parents’ car to get you from place to place, and nowhere to go but the local watering hole here, it is oddly ironic that I find it so confining.
But of course the point of the trip isn’t to go to an exciting place, it’s to see the parents. This weekend we have much to discuss; the possibility of having a child, why the world is the way it is, politics. But the reality is that we’re probably going to get wasted listening to music around the fire in the backyard.
It’s been since Christmas since I’ve seen them over there. And as much as I feel tortured by being away from home on my third day there, I am oddly excited to see them every time. . . they are, I have to admit, very cool.
- - - -
What else is going on? Absolutely nothing. I’ve been trying to amuse myself with going out and meeting people, spending a lot of money on new opera recording and DVDs. (I’m finding myself doing a lot of work that involves a lot of solo time with little human interaction – so I’ve been listening to this on-line vocal station that has exposed me to a lot more singers and performers. And I’ve bought their recordings.)
Right now I’ve ventured into Opera Seria. 250 years ago when Mozart composed his first operas the prima donnas dominated music composition. The result was, as you can imagine, a lot of music, little of which having historical “legs”. Performed now are almost only Mozart’s, which – though conforming to the opera seria style – were brilliant.
As if you care. What the hell can I say? I’m on a plane and don’t want to watch the lame “audio feature”, Miss Congeniality 2.
- - - - -
On another note, you wouldn’t know from this blog that I’ve started a new job. Why so mum on the new job?
Hmmmmm. . . The people I work with are not perfect, have their complexities and idiosyncrasies, at the end of the day – and I never thought I would say this – I really don’t give a shit. Work is just a means to an end now.
Yet another digression . . .
And how of the new life in Chicago? That’s the more interesting topic. Generally speaking, I’m glad to see old friends -- coming back was a great reunion. But old friends have moved on and I can’t help but think that if I moved here for the first time now, I would not have these friends. We’re all in different places. Moving back here has made me feel, well, dated.
So I miss New York big time for other reasons – I miss the culture and, thought I never thought I would say this, Rob. I guess I’m just a snob, fickle, and will probably never be happy anywhere.
It’s aesthetically beautiful, I should not complain. They have a home larger than five of my apartments on a 10- acre lot and a view of the mountains. But without nothing but my parents’ car to get you from place to place, and nowhere to go but the local watering hole here, it is oddly ironic that I find it so confining.
But of course the point of the trip isn’t to go to an exciting place, it’s to see the parents. This weekend we have much to discuss; the possibility of having a child, why the world is the way it is, politics. But the reality is that we’re probably going to get wasted listening to music around the fire in the backyard.
It’s been since Christmas since I’ve seen them over there. And as much as I feel tortured by being away from home on my third day there, I am oddly excited to see them every time. . . they are, I have to admit, very cool.
- - - -
What else is going on? Absolutely nothing. I’ve been trying to amuse myself with going out and meeting people, spending a lot of money on new opera recording and DVDs. (I’m finding myself doing a lot of work that involves a lot of solo time with little human interaction – so I’ve been listening to this on-line vocal station that has exposed me to a lot more singers and performers. And I’ve bought their recordings.)
Right now I’ve ventured into Opera Seria. 250 years ago when Mozart composed his first operas the prima donnas dominated music composition. The result was, as you can imagine, a lot of music, little of which having historical “legs”. Performed now are almost only Mozart’s, which – though conforming to the opera seria style – were brilliant.
As if you care. What the hell can I say? I’m on a plane and don’t want to watch the lame “audio feature”, Miss Congeniality 2.
- - - - -
On another note, you wouldn’t know from this blog that I’ve started a new job. Why so mum on the new job?
Hmmmmm. . . The people I work with are not perfect, have their complexities and idiosyncrasies, at the end of the day – and I never thought I would say this – I really don’t give a shit. Work is just a means to an end now.
Yet another digression . . .
And how of the new life in Chicago? That’s the more interesting topic. Generally speaking, I’m glad to see old friends -- coming back was a great reunion. But old friends have moved on and I can’t help but think that if I moved here for the first time now, I would not have these friends. We’re all in different places. Moving back here has made me feel, well, dated.
So I miss New York big time for other reasons – I miss the culture and, thought I never thought I would say this, Rob. I guess I’m just a snob, fickle, and will probably never be happy anywhere.
