Jan
22
I am a feminist. This occasionally colors my perception of classical works, making it difficult for me to enjoy some of the pieces that are overtly misogynist or racist. Some pieces are presented in a way that makes it possible to put them back into context and remember they were written hundreds of years ago when sexism and racism were more accepted and overt than they are today. However, I still have problems with The Taming of the Shrew and I was fully expecting Pagliacci to be of its ilk; namely that it would infuriate me with its abuse of women and I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the musical impact of the work.
The Seattle Opera took a novel approach to performing this piece, removing the traditional showing of Cavalleria Rusticana from the bill and filling the time with a flashback of Canio and Nedda and a piece of music pulled from other Leoncavalla works. The 11 minute interlude traveled through Canios memory from the time when he and Nedda met (she was very young and he was an adult clown) through to the present day. The music and accompanying circus acts were fascinating in their own right, but they also showed a tenderness between the two that wasn’t displayed in the first act. The growth of the relationship between Canio and Nedda and their happiness together was shown in a way that made it possible to understand Canio better.
My concerns about not enjoying this piece were entirely unfounded. I was absolutely blown away by the opera. I have never been moved by music or performance like I was by Antonello Palombis performance as Pagliacci. I would have thought that I wouldn’t have any sympathy for such a jealous jerk, but the passion and energy Palombi brought to the performance made me cry. It just broke my heart to see him in so much pain. After seeing the way he lavished attention on Nedda in the interlude, it was impossible not to feel for a man whose heartbreak snapped his mind, and Palombis performance brought this state of being home. I think with a lesser actor, it wouldn’t have been as easy to feel that sympathy.
The curtain call showed exactly how much effort Palombi hadput into the final scene. He came out for his bows sobbing with exhaustion. It was a truly beautiful performance, the only one where I felt the need to give a standing ovation. I was privileged to be there.
Jan
17
I am a fool. Sometimes I forget that being a techie doesn’t make me uber-technical; it just makes me able to troubleshoot.
Over the holidays, I had several days off from work. I figured that this would be the perfect time to do some upgrading on my web server, especially since I hadn’t really worked on it since I’d installed Fedora Core 2. Yeah, it’s really been that long. They’re up to FC8 now, so I had some serious upgrading to do. And you can’t really skip versions with the way it’s set up. Far more likely to cause problems that way. So I made what backups I could and set to it.
Read more
Jan
7
I now know that my neighbors use clumping clay cat litter. The kind that’s grey with little blue flecks in it. I also happen to know that this stuff stains beige carpet.
It all started out innocently enough. Wednesday, I stopped at the end of the driveway on my way home from work to pick up the mail. This time of year it’s dark when I leave for work and dark when I come home, so pulling into the driveway and walking along the semi-slimy side of the gravel driveway is always a challenge. There’s no sidewalk and the grassy/muddy edge along the driveway is full of potholes and giant rocks. Normally I don’t drive far enough down the driveway for this to be a problem; pop out of the car, walk 10 steps, grab the mail, and jump back in. A minute tops.
However, this Wednesday was special. I was stomping around in the dark, trying to avoid the puddles and the big ankle-twisting rocks when I stepped in something squishy. At the time I assumed I’d hit a nasty mud puddle, but since I didn’t slide too much or twist any ankles, I didn’t worry about it. I just grabbed the mail and got back in the car. I arrived at the house in the dark and climbed the stairs to take off my shoes and crash for a bit. I paid no attention to the weird sticking of my right foot on the carpeted stairs, I saw nothing unusual. Not until the next morning.
On my way out Thursday morning, my husband noted that there was a weird stain on the carpet. I vaguely remembered stepping in something odd and figured that I should check my shoes. Why yes, the arch under my foot had trapped some foreign substance that required removing. And man was there a lot of it. I cleaned off my shoe with about a dozen tissues, washed my hands and trundled off to work.
When I got home that night, my husband told me that he’d discovered the cause of the problem. He was cleaning up the stains on the stairs and the smell got him thinking. So he went down to the street and discovered that his hunch was right. The trash collectors had managed to drop a bag of one of the neighbors cat litter cleaning out of their trash can, and just left it where it fell. This sat in the rain for a day before I stepped in it, thus the slimy texture. So I’d been tracking some other cats pee around the house.
At this point, I’m just thankful that our cats haven’t decided that this is cause for a pee-war on the stairs.
Jan
4
You gotta love converting from one posting system to another. This process will hopefully be less painful than I’m expecting, but only because I’m expecting it to be purely manual. Time to start looking for conversion software, I guess.
From a practical, and readership, standpoint this means that the archives will slowly be rebuilt. But all new posts from here on out will be in the new system. Any suggestions on plugins for WordPress gratefully accepted.
Dec
21
Make a face for the camera
Filed Under daily
At the company party earlier this month they had a photo area set up so all of us in our fancy clothes could get our pictures taken. This is not my favorite thing in the world to do, especially because I invariably gain 50 pounds for the camera. I have not yet mastered the angled stance to actually look my weight. But I can fake a smile with the best of them after years of school pictures.
My husband is another story altogether. He is convinced that he can only smile if he’s genuinely having a good time, and taking a picture is not fun. So instead he bares his teeth at the camera. He ends up looking like a wild animal ready to kill the photographer, even in his fancy suit. So in this picture of our fancy clothes, I look fat and he looks like he’s ready to eat someones head.
We discussed his inability to smile last night and the discussion went something like this:
Me: You need to practice smiling for the camera. You look like you’re baring your teeth here.
Him: I don’t like to smile for the camera.
Me: This is not about liking to smile for the camera. Or liking having your picture taken. This is about making a good picture.
Him: But I don’t smile. I laugh.
Me: No, you smile just fine. You just grimace at the camera. Try letting the smile reach your eyes.
Him: It’s still bad. See? *squints and bares teeth*
Me: Ok, try being cooperative for a minute. Pretend you’re happy for the camera.
Him: Pretend?
Me: Or just imagine the people who are going to enjoy seeing this picture.
Him: Hmpf. Don’t wanna.
Yeah. So we’re going to be practicing the smile some more tonight. And I’m going to be pretending his face is silly putty and molding it appropriately.
Nov
2
Wondering
Filed Under alternative therapy
I have my fair share of down days. Days where I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the world really was out to get me and even kittens couldn’t make it better. Most of them aren’t that dramatic, just a general feeling of apathy with tendencies to cry for no reason whatsoever, but they’re irritating nonetheless. I want to be happy, or at least feel engaged in my life. And apparently when I’m not engaged it comes across pretty clearly and my husband worries.
So last month I came up with a way to beat this melancholia and keep it down. It’s actually startlingly simple and actually kind of fun. Sometimes it even makes me want to go out and research things I’d never known I had an interest in.
I play a little game called “I wonder.”
I always start with boring stuff, because that’s all I can muster in that state of mind. “I wonder what we’re having for dinner. I wonder what made me cranky this time. I wonder if people will ever learn to drive in a way that isn’t actively insane.” Over and over, I start sentences with “I wonder” and eventually my concrete side lets go and my imagination takes over.
“I wonder how people came up with names for things. I wonder how the color blue sounds. I wonder what would happen if…”
Eventually I seem to find something that makes me want to be interested and engaged. Something to get me through the day, the week. It allows me to focus all this energy somewhere other than nitpicking on details and getting bogged down in all the things that need to and should. My own little liberation.
And then I can go on, being me, worrying about life and what I’m doing, but no longer overwhelmed. It’s glorious.
Apr
23
Who watches…
Filed Under graphic novel, reviews
I’m late to the world of comics, just really getting into it now at the age of 32. But I think this gives me a bit of an advantage over the average joe who started reading comics as a teenager, believing that “pow” and “boom” are the height of literary sophistication. Starting later has pushed me into the realm of comics that have something to say, instead of the ones where the action is the sole purpose of their existence.
Starting with Sandman, moving to Hellboy, and Hellblazer rounded out my horror collection. At that point, I was forced to admit that I liked comics, no matter the stigma around the genre and I branched out to League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Hatter M and finally Sin City and Watchmen.
Watchmen was beyond anything I’d expected; there was a complexity to the story that is beyond most novels, let alone fiction published in graphic format. And that’s what Whatchment truly is - it’s a novel that happens to incorporate visuals as a medium of storytelling.
The story itself is compelling: during the 40’s vigilantes in costumes are accepted, even revered as folk heroes. In the 70’s they fall out of favor as they’re used too frequently and the abilities of the individuals become super-human. But for these people, the life of an ordinary citizen just doesn’t fulfill them. They need to be meaningful in a way that protects the populace, but after being forced to retire there isn’t any way to legally fill that void.
It’s within this setting that the questions start coming up. What happens when deterrents are removed? Can the future be changed? What is the nature of evil? Do the ends ever justify the means?
The beauty of this story is that it doesn’t attempt to answer the questions it poses, instead it leaves the reader to try to figure out their own answers. The moral ambiguity is the point, not the plot device. Each subsequent read of the story is different, biased by foreknowledge and the ability to muse on the problems posed to the characters. In the pages the timeline is short and fierce, the characters forced to react quickly or miss their opportunity. This is in stark contrast with the readers experience. They are allowed to reflect and repent at leisure, posing the questions again and again until they come up with an answer that they like.
I wish that there were more narratives like this: complex, deep and thought provoking. The genre could certainly use them to get a readership outside of the stereotype.
Mar
28
Cars that run on compressed air
Filed Under tech
Found out about this one from some coworkers. Fascinating stuff. They’re trying to mass produce a car that only requires enough energy to compress air in the tank to 4500PSI.
Wiki article
the air car - the official site
Mar
23
After listening to an interview with the author on NPR, I added The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf by Mohja Kahf to my list of items on hold at the library. I was looking for soemthing to give me a bit of insight into the Islamic way of life since I don’t really have much exposure to it (the Pacific NW is full of Asian communities, but Islamic ones are harder to find).
Turns out that this story is a typical female coming of age story wrapped in cultural issues. It was easy to identify with the hard lessons of growing up and trying to find a sense of self as distinct from that of the family. So the plot was simple and compelling at the same time. Having struggled with those issue myself, it’s always interesting to me to see how others would interpret the same situations.
The straightforward plot allowed me to do what I’d really been looking for and pay attention to the cultural differences. Unfortunately, the story was geared toward someone with a working knowledge of the culture, so I’m sure that I missed some of the references. It felt much like a Primer; on each subsequent reading after further research and knowledge the meaning changes a little.
I’m now looking forward to a second reading, after more research, that is.
Mar
21
Cost Cutting
Filed Under original fiction
The time for input had come and gone and with it his opportunity to influence their decision. Not that he’d ever really had the chance. He had registered his concerns as he was instructed, knowing even as he made the appointment that he would be ignored. His input was irrelevant, the decision had already been made. He’s been here too long to be fooled by this sad and predictable attempt at making the employees feel like their concerns had been heard. It was all PR these days.
That was probably the worst part of the whole deal. Knowing that these decisions were being made in conference rooms by people that only cared about the bottom line. The didn’t even have any real long term vision. The only thing that matters is what will boost the bottom line today.How on earth did they expect someone to be able to do their work with the impending doom of whatever random change might save a buck today? And when were they going to get the new pens that had been ordered months ago? It was getting absolutely ridiculous.
But despite his misgivings he’d gone in and talked to his boss, a middle manager. He expected a canned script and wasn’t disappointed. All of his objections to this dollar-driven scheme were overridden with what amounted to “Thank you for caring, but we know better than you do.” Nevermind that he’d done the research saying that replacing internal employees with those contracted through an outside firm was bad for retention of those employees not outsourced. Ignore the fact that turnover at outsourcing firms was notoriously high and they’d be losing training time with each new person, let alone all the data that had never quite been written down. And who knew about the employees these new firms would accept.
At the end of all his carefully articulated arguments, his boss ended the session with platitudes and assurances of passing along his concerns while ushering him quickly out of her office. He watched through her side window and she called someone and started a loud and laughter-filled conversation. There really wasn’t any point in going through all of that, but maybe he could get to sleep at night by telling himself he’d tried. He was the one who had to notify those who were being let go and see the shock on their faces as they realized they weren’t immune to the cutbacks. That was swiftly followed by bitterness at him getting to keep his job. As if he enjoyed coming in to work with the new employees.
He looked up from his paperwork, halting that train of thought. It was time for the monthly staff meeting. The desks outside his office showed that all work had stopped - they were waiting for him. It was odd how strong their sense of time was. He stood and walked out of his office, watching as all the heads slowly turned toward him. The difference between the focus of their glassy eyes and those of the people he’d let go never got easier to see. They may be cheaper, but there was definitely something wrong with working around so much decay.
“Good morning.”
“Nnnnnnng” the zombies replied.
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