A TRANSPORTER OF OPERATIC GRANDNESS
THE ITINERANT PLAYERS in Ruggero Leoncavalo’s I Pagliacci are four in number: Canio, his wife Nedda, Tonio the hunchback, and Beppe. The only other role of note is Silvio, Nedda’s … Continue reading
IS DECENCY STILL COMMON?
COLUMNIST DAVID BROOKS wrote “We need an uprising of decency,” and I agree. His Opinion column in The New York Times, August 1, 2019, carries the title “Marianne Williamson Knows … Continue reading
PAUL SPOONER—AUTOMATIST EXTRAORDINAIRE
I THANK ALICE SPAWLS, assistant editor at London Review of Books, for introducing me to the works of Paul Spooner. Collectively, Spooner and his pals form the Cabaret Mechanical Theatre, … Continue reading
BETTER THAN “CALIFORNIA DREAMIN”
THE HEADLINE IN Science, July 12, 2019, was eye-catching: “Solar Plus Batteries is Now Cheaper Than Fossil Power.” Robert F. Service describes the situation “driven by steady price declines in … Continue reading
ON THE MANIFESTO PROJECT’S RIGHT AND LEFT
WHAT FOLLOWS IS a self-encouraged civics lesson concerning political parties, right, left, and center, as identified by the Manifesto Project. This organization’s findings were the subject of “What Happened to … Continue reading
JACOB REES-MOGG—ANOTHER BRIT, ANOTHER REAL PIECE OF WORK
THE NEW BRITISH prime minister, Boris Johnson has made Jacob Rees-Mogg leader of the House of Commons. I’d have thought a prime minister would be the leader, and historically often … Continue reading
YOU CAN’T KEEP A GOOD STORY (OR TRILOGY, EVEN) DOWN PART 2
BEAUMARCHAIS’ STORIES HAD good legs, operawise. Here in Part 2, we’ll continue with lives of the Almavivas and Figaros, sung to our favorite tunes. La Mère Coupable, The Guilty Mother … Continue reading
YOU CAN’T KEEP A GOOD STORY (OR TRILOGY, EVEN) DOWN PART 1
CULTURAL TALES CAN lead to literary works, then be transformed into operas. The myths of Greek gods, for instance, led to The Oresteia, a trilogy of plays by Aeschylus in … Continue reading
ON STRAITS AND NARROWS PART 2
YESTERDAY, WE were visiting the troubled Hormuz Strait in the Middle East. Today, we explore two other straits, Gibraltar and Bering, and find that the only hassles in these two … Continue reading
ON STRAITS AND NARROWS PART 1
THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ, so critical to the world’s oil supply, has been in the news recently. In particular, BBC News, July 26, 2019, reported that it “is at the … Continue reading
Simanaitis Says 