THE PROMISE OF LIVING
AARON COPLAND, Brooklyn-born 120 years ago, evoked what it means to be an American—for this Thanksgiving Day 2020 and for all days. In his opera The Tender Land, Copland appeals … Continue reading
LAUGHTER AFTER LAMENT
AS SUGGESTED HERE in SimanaitisSays on Election Day 2020, “A lamentable scenario would be protracted legal hassles, complicated by Republican hypocrisy of Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court appointment, and fueled … Continue reading
DETROIT’S GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG PART 2
YESTERDAY IN PART 1, Michigan Opera Theatre and its new Artistic Director Yuval Sharon offered a Motown Take on Wagner’s Götterdämmerung—at different levels of its multi-story parking garage. Today in … Continue reading
DETROIT’S GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG PART 1
THE MICHIGAN OPERA THEATRE recently offered a new take on Motown Sound with its recent Twilight: Gods, a pandemic-influenced one-hour operatic condensation of Wagner’s epic (and six-hour!) Götterdämmerung, the final … Continue reading
ON GERRYMANDERING
MERRIAM-WEBSTER DEFINES “to gerrymander” as “1: to divide or arrange (a territory) into election districts in a way that gives one political party an unfair advantage.” and “2: to divide … Continue reading
LET US ALL CELEBRATE
AS I WRITE this on Sunday, November 8, 2020, Joe Biden has a lead of some 4 million in the popular vote and a projected Electoral College tally of 290 … Continue reading
ON CONSPIRACY THEORIES
THE LONDON REVIEW of Books continues to illuminate and entertain me with its erudite articles. Its October 22, 2020, issue has “Red Pill, Blue Pill,” subtitled “James Meek on the … Continue reading
AN EARLY FARCE—BUT AS TIMELY AS TODAY’S HEADLINES PART 2
YESTERDAY IN PART 1, we met the characters of The Farce of Pierre Pathelin, a play from the fifteenth century that resonates today in its portrayal of mendacity. Today in … Continue reading
AN EARLY FARCE—YET AS TIMELY AS TODAY’S HEADLINES PART 1
LET US PAUSE to enjoy theatrical farce. In fact, The Farce of Pierre Pathelin may be one of the earliest of its kind, the genre defined by Merriam-Webster as “a … Continue reading
VOTE!!
TODAY, NOVEMBER 3, as we all recognize, is Election Day. But not just any election day. Here in California. Wife Dottie and I put our ballots in the mail on … Continue reading
Simanaitis Says 