CREATE ONE’S OWN LA BOHÈME
I’VE REDISCOVERED a book about making one’s own opera production with nothing more than scissors and glue. What fun. A snip-and-paste challenge. I think of this as preparation for the … Continue reading
THE MOOR OF THE MET
GIUSEPPE VERDI’S Otello opens the Metropolitan Opera’s 2015-2016 season with a break in tradition. Hitherto, its Moor of Venice has appeared in black makeup, but not this time. Tenor Aleksandrs … Continue reading
MOROCCAN RIFFS—AND MORAL CONSEQUENCES
FULL DISCLOSURE: This began as an item on U.S. World War I pilots taking part in the 1925 Riff Uprising in Morocco. However, the name Riff rang an old-movie bell. … Continue reading
CHOCOLATE: MINE! MINE! MINE!
THE BBC World Service alerted me to yet another world conflict, this one between chocolatiers. Sometimes called the Chocolate War, in legal circles it can be identified as Kit Kat … Continue reading
SOCIAL ENGINEER, HEAL THYSELF
HERE AT SimanaitisSays, I avoid political matters, especially local ones. There is a surfeit of websites addressing them and, besides, statistics show that typically more than half of you, bless … Continue reading
THE FIRST U.S. CIVIL WAR
DISPUTED SURVEYS led to the first war between U.S. citizens. The year was 1835, 26 years before the Battle of Fort Sumter and the American Civil War. The conflict, known … Continue reading
KFAC, REMEMBERED FONDLY
ONLY RECENTLY, in researching “The Birth of Los Angeles TV,” did I learn that Auburn/Cord/Duesenberg auto mogul E.L. Cord was the C of Los Angeles classical radio station KFAC. (A … Continue reading
THE BIRTH OF LOS ANGELES TV
PHILO T. FARNSWORTH may not have foreseen what he started. In 1927, the same year Charles Lindbergh flew non-stop New York to Paris, Farnsworth transmitted a televised image at his … Continue reading
TV HISTORY AND CULTURE
MY PRINCIPAL enthusiasms for television are British (its mysteries and period dramas) and historical (TV’s place in an evolving culture). I unearthed a book on this latter topic. I’ll save … Continue reading
DISNEY ANIMATION: THE ILLUSION OF LIFE
LET’S CELEBRATE Disney animation and also the near-term evolution of publication. Initially published in 1981, the book Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life has been the classic work describing the … Continue reading
Simanaitis Says 