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
AN ENGLISH ECCENTRIC PART 3
WE’VE heard of Noel Pemberton-Billing setting his headmaster’s office ablaze, designing a combined cabin cruiser/aeroplane and other inventive ideas, some successful, others less so. Today in the concluding Part 3, … Continue reading
AN ENGLISH ECCENTRIC PART 1
MY INTEREST IN Noel Pemberton-Billing arose from my GMax/Microsoft Flight Simulator hobby: It was Pemberton-Billing who designed the 1913 P.B.7 flying boat which I modeled. Here, in Parts 1, 2, … Continue reading
QUEEN ELIZABETH II—A MAJESTIC PERSONAGE PART 2
IT’S NOT SURPRISING that Elizabeth Longford’s The Oxford Book of Royal Anecdotes includes insights concerning Queen Elizabeth II. Today, in Part 2, we encounter Britain’s first Queen Elizabeth and loyal, … Continue reading
QUEEN ELIZABETH II—A MAJESTIC PERSONAGE PART 1
WHAT WITH her kids, and more recently her grandkids, Queen Elizabeth II has had her share of annis horribilis. More than three decades ago, royal biographer Elizabeth Longford edited The … Continue reading
