May
5
Amazons in Seattle
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Florencia in the Amazons is everything I’d hoped opera would be when I signed up for our first season subscription. Spending money on the possibility of a beautiful performace was enticing and nearly assured, particularly as the only opera I’d seen was the Barber of Seville which made me laugh despite having to read the [...]
Mar
12
Feminista
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The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood is touted as a call to arms for feminists everywhere. Strangely enough, I didn’t find it to be that at all. The story struck me more as the story of a survivor and a cautionary tale against too much change too quickly. There are elements of feminist leanings, warnings [...]
Jan
31
For Love or Money
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The story of Manon Lescaut is fairly well known, if only for its theme. A young woman must choose her direction in life: will she pursue love or money? The story is simple, but the womans inability to choose one or the other results in her death. Nice, tragic story.
The Puccini version of the story [...]
Jan
14
Overcoming omens
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I recently finished Good Omens by Pratchett and Gaiman. I was initially reluctant to start this book - the idea that it would be like The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was too much for me. I didn’t really enjoy the series of Adams’ works - they were too bizarre and disconnected for me to [...]
Jun
4
The Girl of the Golden West
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Actually, the title of the opera was in Italian, but it was based in California during the gold rush. Does it really matter? I don’t think so, this was my least favorite of the productions. It was slow, silly and pointless. Casting a large unsexy man as the woman a saintly figure falls for enough [...]
Jun
4
Out of the Box
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I hate that phrase. It doesn’t mean anything at all since it’s been so overused. But the management book that uses the phrase doesn’t really mean that. Or at least this management book, Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box, didn’t mean it that way. This was more a take on what motivates people [...]
Feb
20
Philosofiction
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I finally finished reading The Bridge Across Forever by Richard Bach. This story is a fictionalized account of the man searching for and finding his soul mate.
It’s an interesting treatise on relationships and overcoming fear as an impediment to happiness. As told from his side, it seems extremely reasonable. The assumptions are put in place [...]
Jan
31
Horror and Magic
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The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde is a fantastic adventure into sin. The premise is simple: what would happen if you could get away with anything? The answer, of course, is never that easy.
Dorian is interesting because of the transition he makes. He started out as a youth, as beautiful as he was [...]
Jan
31
Carmen
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January 17, 2004 my hisband and I went to see Carmen. I hadn’t had the opportunity to read any of the preliminary material we were sent, so I went in to this one completely blind. I do’nt think I’ll do that again, I don’t like having to read the subtitles while trying to absorb everything [...]
Jan
10
The Disintigration of America
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Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson is an alarmingly entertaining look at what people are capable of. It is the future if capitalism were to run amok and extend into the government in such a way that it becomes the equivalent of a franchise.
The premise is that laws are just a group of rules that are [...]