THE BALSAMO/CAGLIOSTRO SAGA PART 2
YESTERDAY, HERE AT SimanaitisSays, 18th-century conman Giuseppe Balsamo and his wife Serafina were in Cadiz, Spain. He had just “acquired” an expensive walking stick set with diamonds in its handle … Continue reading
THE BALSAMO/CAGLIOSTRO SAGA PART 1
MODERN CONMEN ARE short-fingered vulgarians compared to Giuseppe/Joseph Balsamo aka the Count Alessandro di Cagliostro. This 18th-century scam artist was in no particular order, a mystic, magician, gigolo, pimp, Coptic … Continue reading
MR. ZERO AND AI
WHAT WITH THE societal discontinuities of artificial intelligence, AI, for short, a drama of almost a century ago comes to mind. Elmer Rice’s The Adding Machine was first staged in … Continue reading
TO BE OR NOT TO BE A METHOD ACTOR
SOMETHING OR OTHER got me thinking about the Method as it pertains to acting. Here are tidbits on the Method, gleaned from books around here and my usual Internet sleuthing. … Continue reading
LORENZO DA PONTE—A MULTIVARIATE CAREER PART 2
YESTERDAY, LORENZO Da Ponte assumed a bishop’s name, joined the priesthood, took a mistress, got banished from Venice, and worked with Mozart. Today, we learn more of one of their … Continue reading
LORENZO DA PONTE—A MULTIVARIATE CAREER PART 1
OPERA COMPOSERS get all the compliments. Seemingly, librettists either crib the tale from an earlier source or just come up with words that match the composer’s notes. But there was … Continue reading
THE INVISIBLE MAN—PAST, PRESENT, FANCIFUL AND SCIENTIFIC
I’M NOT INTO horror as an entertainment genre; I guess there is enough of it in real life. But the recent rave about The Invisible Man movie encourages today’s tidbits … Continue reading
SOAPY SMITH—19TH-CENTURY CON MAN, GANGSTER, POLITICAL BOSS PART 2
SOAPY SMITH CAME a long way from practicing the prize soap racket: He put politicos on the take and didn’t have to move around so much. Until, that is, the … Continue reading
SOAPY SMITH—19TH-CENTURY AMERICAN CON MAN, GANGSTER, POLITICAL BOSS PART 1
THESE DAYS, IT’S COMFORTING to learn that our country has survived earlier crooked politicians, gangsters, and conmen. Jefferson Randolph “Soapy” Smith II is just such a character. Jeff practiced classic … Continue reading
AN AMUSING SIDE TO IT ALL
I AM THANKFUL to find humor in presidential matters of late. Here are tidbits, both Red and Blue, most of them recent, one vintage, from a variety of sources. On … Continue reading
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