Art Nouveau Ho

One of those moments

Wed, 14 May 2008 17:19:55 GMT

On Sunday night in the Moritzbastei, orkamedies told us a quote he'd read years ago in Dragon magazine:

"You don't stop playing games because you get old," he said. "It's the other way round."

Being in the throes of Geek Shame at that moment, I then mocked him for having read Dragon. I regret doing that. It was mean, and it missed the point: Truth is truth, wherever you find it.

The Ork, astute beast that he is, went on to point out that growing older just means that the games you play get bigger and better. Towering in his spiky red lacquered fetish armour, he grinned toothily at a masked, frock-coated rosenkavalier: "We're no longer doing this with dice and bits o' paper, are we?"

************
If I have one major piece of undeserved good fortune in life, it's that I seem to end up with the finest people in the Universe as friends. At the moment, my twisted heart is particularly with the Leipzig companions I've just bid farewell to: orkamedies, esdi_leanne, fairie_ring, thepussykat, littlecyberalex, and rosenkavalier. Thank you all.

The toast, ladies and gents, is "Black powder, black beer, black humour." Prosit!

Leipzig drinking game (continued)

Tue, 13 May 2008 08:11:50 GMT

Mini-crinoline/big cyberboots - drink
Same, on a male - drink
Mohican that looks like the work of Henry Moore - drink
Emo kid covered in chains who only wishes he were as kinky as esdi_leanne - drink
orkamedies trying to eat a pork product bigger than his head - drink
orkamedies succeeding in eating a pork product bigger than his head - buy orkamedies a drink and then run
An oblivious rosenkavalier getting filthy stares from guys in poorly made frock coats - drink
thepussykat outshining all comers while barefoot and pregnant - drink [nonalcoholic]
littlecyberalex taking less than half an hour to do his hair - kill your drink

Leipzig drinking game (so far)

Mon, 12 May 2008 01:22:40 GMT

Suspenders with drooping and/or trashed stockings- drink
Idiot with bells on ankles- drink
Gratuitous underwear exposure (intentional) - drink
Gratuitous underwear exposure (accidental) - kill your drink
Liza fails at German - drink
Liza succeeds at German - buy Liza a drink

Good morning, London

Fri, 02 May 2008 19:42:57 GMT

It's one of those mornings when you pry your eyes open and Oh god.

He seemed so witty and dashing only last night! A blond Adonis, so infectiously cheerful, the life and soul of the party.

Nothing of this remains in the face currently mashed into the pillow barely a foot from your own. A viscous ribbon of drool runs from the corner of his cherubic mouth. Last night that pout was sexy. Now it reminds you horribly of a Cabbage Patch Kid.

Dimly, you remember how delighted you were at his interest in you. You fight the urge to gnaw your own arm off at the shoulder.

Maybe we just passed out. Maybe I didn't...
...hang on, I've got a campaign sticker on each nipple. Oh shit.

He sighs contentedly. As his noxious morning breath washes over you, you realise there's no escape: you've woken up in bed with a smug, moronic, bigoted Thatcherite named Boris Johnson.

Enjoy the next five years, suckers.

Tea, countertenors and song

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 23:23:18 GMT

While some were off enjoying the splendours of Whitby, I spent the weekend tending to a sick countertenor. He had planned to come over from Lübeck to rehearse some Baroque duets for a future concert, but when he arrived the poor guy promptly keeled over with sinusitis.

He needed rest, so I left him to it. Meanwhile, I was able to spend a lovely afternoon in Oxford with monochromegirl and evilmattikinz. La Monochrome showed us around the university's Museum of Natural History, the building that inspired her to become an architect; hearing her talk about it certainly inspired me. There may be further invasions of Oxford in the future: I myself have had a vision, a vision of GOTHS ON THE RIVER. I'll punt, pvcdiva can serve tea, esdi_leanne can feed the ducks and everyone else can drink and look fabulous. How about it?

Otherwise, Countertenorfriend and I spent most of the weekend cooking, chilling on the sofa watching Blackadder, exchanging massages and singing love songs. "I feel married," I thought at one point. "To someone gay. Obviously."

When his voice had recovered sufficiently, we sang through Ino and Athamas's scene from Handel's Semele and the beautiful "Pur ti miro" duet from the end of Monteverdi's Poppea. Interestingly, both pieces end on a unison note. There is nothing in the world, I think, like the sound of a woman's and a man's voice singing the same pitch together. There's something about the two different qualities of voice arriving at the same note that sends shivers the length of one's spine. Handel and Monteverdi both knew about that, and Philip Glass also uses it to great effect in his opera Akhnaten.

Meanwhile, here's the programme for what looks to be a fairly riotous concert this weekend, also starring the lovely Peter Collins (baritone) and Guy Newbury (piano):

from Semele, George Frederic Handel:

Aria (Juno): 'Awake, Saturnia... Iris, hence away!'
Recitative (Juno): 'Somnus, awake!'
Aria (Somnus): 'Leave me, loathsome light!'
Recitative (Juno): 'Dull God, canst thou attend the water's fall'
Aria (Somnus): 'More sweet is that name'
Recitative (Juno): 'My will obey'
Duet (Juno, Somnus): 'Obey my will, thy rod resign'

from die Zauberflöte, W. A. Mozart:

Aria (Sarastro): 'In diesen heil'gen Hallen'

from Cosi fan tutte, W. A. Mozart:
Duet (Dorabella, Guglielmo): 'Il core vi dono'

from L'Italiana in Algieri, Gioacchino Rossini
Aria (Isabella): 'Cruda sorte'
Duet (Isabella, Taddeo): 'Ai capricci della sorte'

For an encore, we'll be doing my own little arrangement of "Over the Hills and Far Away" from The Beggar's Opera. If I can get it written out in time, that is. Ahahahaha.

Poem of the day

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 00:35:16 GMT

I'm informed that it's International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day. Today's mandate: "Give away professional-quality work online."

My offering is a ballade I wrote some years ago. A ballade, for those who don't know, is a French form with three eight-line stanzas and a four-line envoi at the end. Charles d'Orléans wrote armloads of them during his 25-year exile in England. In the play Cyrano de Bergerac, Cyrano improvises a ballade while duelling a foolish viscount in Act I. One of the unsung masters of the ballade in English was Dorothy Parker: you can find hers here, here, here and here.

This particular ballade was sent to my then-partner one Valentine's Day, along with some shiny new Calvin Kleins. Enjoy!

A library on Love I've read,
And many a spring and summer's day
I've passed in making sore my head
And growing prematurely gray
In sorting truth from mere hearsay--
As ever, truth defies belief--
Yet still I am a fool today,
For Love and Life, alas, are brief.

Know this, you voyagers who tread
Lightfooted on Love's shining way:
That one whose life by Love is led
Shall ever err and often stray;
A thousand monsters face and slay
To wreathe your head with Daphne's leaf
For one triumphant, fleeting day,
For Love and Life, alas, are brief.

Some wing their way from bed to bed
And love as many as they may;
Some follow Ariadne's thread,
One silver strand, and never stray.
Some never give the heart away
In terror lest it come to grief,
Yet all too soon their prides decay,
For Love and Life, alas, are brief.

L'envoi:
Prince, may your heart be light alway
And never know a day of grief!
Where it may lead make no delay,
For Love and Life, alas, are brief.

Happy birthday, Will

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 02:39:09 GMT

ceruleanst's genius translation of Pulp Fiction into Shakespearean English has already been linked all over the place, and justly so.

The MetaFilter link inspired MeFi's birthday gift to Shakespeare: the Pulp Shakespeare Thread. Some highlights:
Shakespeare Christopher Walken
"Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon" as a sonnet
Dirty Harry IV, part 1
1601: A Shakespeare Odyssey

and my own small contributions: C'est La Vie in pentameter; Vincent's looking glass soliloquy.

Happy birthday, Shakespeare. You rock my world.

So quick bright things come to confusion

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 13:35:21 GMT

These little boats are making me very happy.

Also, the same person does sand rake art.

I've always thought that one of the internet's lovelier aspects is its nature as a repository for the ephemeral: beautiful, transient things.

Chili of mass combustion

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 00:10:23 GMT

Tonight I hosted three friends for chili con carne and cornbread. (Why do British people spell chili with two Ls? Does this have anything to do with how hard it is to get a decent bowl of chili in this country?)

I attempted to make a sensible, middle-of-the-road chili that you could serve to normal people with normal palates. velvetdahlia, who yields to none in her knowledge of Mexican cuisine , accompanied me to Whole Foods and advised me on spices. I ended up using no fresh chiles: jalapeños aren't in season, habañeros would have caused the heat death of the universe, and velvetdahlia turned up her SoCal nose at the Scotch bonnets. Instead, I used two different chili powders: cayenne pepper plus a chipotle powder from The Cool Chile Company, source of relief for us poor stranded Mexican-cuisine-starved Yanks.

The chipotle powder turned out to be delightfully strong and smoky, but only two tablespoons rocketed my perfectly civilised chili into blow-your-head-off territory. Watching an Englishman, a Welshman and an Aussie try to be polite about it was incredibly entertaining. Luckily I had plenty of sour cream around on the side. (I remember being stricken with horror when the normally excellent White Horse and Griffin in Whitby served yoghurt with their chili. Yoghurt is for curries, you heretics.)

Why am I telling you this?... Well, are you coming to my pre-Leipzig dinner? Guess what we're having!

Actually, since the Leipzig sendoff involves catering to a large group of people with wildly different food requirements, my strategy will be to make an assortment of smallish dishes and hope everyone finds something they like. So I will still fully sort of respect you as an individual if you decline to eat the Blow Your Head Off Chili.

And now, a meme! From the ever lovely zoecb:

1. Put your media player of choice on shuffle.
2. List the first fifteen songs that come up (skipping titles like "Fugue in D Minor") and add "in my pants" to the end.
3. Bold the ones that actually made you LOL.

See You Later Alligator In My Pants Bill Haley
Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick In My Pants Ian Drury & The Blockheads
Working In The Coal Mine In My Pants Lee Dorsey
I Palindrome I In My Pants They Might Be Giants
Music, Maestro, Please In My Pants Max Raabe & Palast Orchester
Kinky Boots (7inch) In My Pants Patrick Macnee and Honor Blackman
Minnie The Moocher In My Pants Cab Calloway
What A Day For A Daydream In My Pants The Lovin' Spoonful
The Blitz In My Pants Mrs Henderson Presents Soundtrack
Antiphon: Omnes de Saba In My Pants Anonymous 4
Maybe In My Pants Janis Joplin
Long As I Can See The Light In My Pants Creedence Clearwater Revival
Love Shack In My Pants The B-52's
Some Girls In My Pants Rachel Stevens
Mercedes Benz In My Pants Janis Joplin

The shape of summer

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 15:20:01 GMT

At the moment, the future looks like this:

4 May: Duet recital with baritone Peter Collins, St John's College, Oxford: Handel, Mozart, Rossini

[9-13 May: LEIPZIG IS OURS]

18 May: Song recital with pianist Guy Newbury, Jacqueline Du Pre Music Room, St Hilda's College, Oxford

11 June: Third Lady in concert of highlights from Mozart's The Magic Flute, 1pm, St George's Hanover Square, London

28 June: Duet recital with soprano Delia Zielinski, Washington DC: Mozart, Strauss, Offenbach, Délibes, Johnson etc

18 July: Haydn Nelson Mass, somewhereorother, London

1st week of August: London revival of Gianni Schicchi, double-billed with Ravel's L'Enfant et les Sortilèges

Summer, here we come.

What time is it, Eccles?

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 01:26:54 GMT

oooOooo, it must be time for Goon Show Radio: delicious free online streaming mp3 Goon Shows!

I talk to the trees... that's why they put me away.

Rochester comes full circle

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 15:39:51 GMT

Today is All Fools' Day, and coincidentally the 360th birthday of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester.

All who know me know of my ongoing affair with the wild Earl. Sensual, anarchic, wildly funny and vulgar as all hell: the best thing about Rochester is that he talks to his reader in a way few other poets do, and can seduce you into anything if you give him time.

Biography here, poems here, here and here. Go read. Pornokrates is a decent historical-erotica site, and well worth having a poke around.

A lot of those lists of poems cite the following drippy love lyric as by Rochester. It's not, but he did write a satire on it. Nowhere on the net seems to have them both together, so I thought I'd provide:

I cannot change as others do,
Though you unjustly scorn;
Since that poor swain that sighs for you,
For you alone was born.
No, Phyllis, no, your heart to move
A surer way I'll try:
And to revenge my slighted love,
Will still love on, will still love on, and die.

When killed with grief Amintas lies,
And you to mind shall call
The sighs that now unpitied rise,
The tears that vainly fall,
That welcome hour that ends this smart
Will then begin your pain;
For such a faithful tender heart
Can never break, can never break in vain.

The Mock Song

"I swive as well as others do;
I'm young, not yet deformed;
My tender heart, sincere and true,
Deserves not to be scorned.
Why Phyllis, then why will you swive,
With forty lovers more?"
"Can I," said she, "with nature strive?
Alas I am, alas I am a whore!"

Were all my body larded o'er
With darts of love, so thick
That you might find in every pore
A well-stuck standing prick,
Whilst yet my eyes alone were free,
My heart would never doubt,
In amorous rage and ecstasy,
To wish those eyes, to wish those eyes fucked out."

50 ways to love your liver

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 06:34:42 GMT

After a long day of sorting out boring serious stuff, I went slightly insane and roasted a duck for dinner.

The duck turned out to come with ORGANS inside. I am a grown woman and I ought to be able to cope with ORGANS. Instead I stared at them for a while, then made a small pitiful noise and-- shame of shames-- asked my mother to extract the ORGANS from the duck's cavity.

(My mother cannot read Stephen King novels or watch movies with swearing in them, yet she can be perfectly relaxed while up to her elbows in duck viscera. Go figure.)

I did force myself to chop the ORGANS along with the neck and the wings and make gravy out of them. The rest of the duck got rubbed with oil/soy sauce/sake/5 spice powder and stuck in the oven. It was pretty damn tasty.

The one ORGAN that didn't get used for gravy was the duck's liver. All through the roasting-and-gravy-making process, this shiny red liver was lying there staring at me. As you probably know, the liver is the largest organ in the body. This duck liver appeared bigger than an actual duck. "Just throw it out," said my mother as she left to go out to dinner.

So there I was: duck roasting in the oven, duck gravy simmering on the stove, huge pot of red cabbage looming on the back burner-- and, lying on the counter, this shiny red raw liver that, only a short while earlier, had been helping the duck's body filter toxins out of its system. What toxins does a duck consume? Do I even want to know?

Various thoughts went through my head:
1) Aaaagghhhh slimy duck liver.
2) You're not a vegetarian. Eating meat means consuming dead animals. Deal with it.
3) Out of respect to the animal, you shouldn't waste any part of it.
4) Even the ORGANS aaaaagghhhhh.
5) This was a happy organic free range duck. As duck livers go, this one is probably quite classy.
6) I like pâté, and I've never made it.
7) I'm a grown woman and I ought to be able to cope with ORGANS.
8) Aaaaaaagghhh slimy duck liver.
9) PÂTÉ. NOW.

So a quick Google search led me to this recipe. You'll note that it says "any sinewous bits removed." Both "sinewy" and "sinuous" mean something very different from the consistency of raw duck liver, which is about like meat Jello. ["jelly" to you Brits.] I found this out by extracting bits of stringy connective tissue with my fingers. I think it's safe to say I am now slightly more au fait with ORGANS. Plus, the pâté turned out pretty damn tasty. I used the zest and juice of an orange and some ginger liqueur. It got the speedlime seal of approval.

Post-duck, Speedy and I got creative. I'm painting a rather frightening sea monster onto a square of silk, and Speedy is doing something unnatural to the seat of her trousers with acrylics. Apparently it is meant to give male onlookers an "insta-boner." I'm impressed with this term. I think we have all learnt something today about ORGANS.

Easter weakened

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 13:57:00 GMT

--Made a set of stays with esdi_leanne
--Took her fabric shopping to the Goldhawk Road, which mildly broke her brain
--Passed an evening of beer and cinematic violence in the lair of orkamedies
--Fell under the sinister influence of wyte_phantom and rapidly found myself laden with bags full of shiny objects, awesome hats and silk underwear
--Had my torso meticulously inspected, reshaped and sworn at by a wyte_phantom in corsetiere mode
--Rested my head against the vast shoulder of a Shire horse, who nibbled my handbag curiously
--In the company of wyte_phantom, monochrome_girl and evilmattikinz, partook of champagne, chocolate, cheese and Chester's finest cinnamon toast
--Got taken fabric shopping to Abakhan's, which mildly broke my brain
--Witnessed evilmattikinz's disproportionate response to fake fur
--Picked the bits of my brain up off the car floor, stuck them back together with Sellotape
--Came home
--Passed the hell out.

Many, many thanks to the monarchs of style and loveliness who are: esdi_leanne, orkamedies, wyte_phantom, monochrome_girl and evilmattikinz. Collectively and individually, you rock my world.

Equal night

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 14:39:50 GMT

Happy Equinox, everyone.

This balance point between the light and dark halves of the year finds me in reflective mood. The following quatrains from FitzGerald's Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam have been much in my mind:

Oh, my Belovéd, fill the Cup that clears
TO-DAY of past Regrets and future Fears -
To-morrow? - Why, To-morrow I may be
Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n Thousand Years.

You know, my Friends, how long since in my House
For a new Marriage I did make Carouse :
Divorced old barren Reason from my Bed,
And took the Daughter of the Vine to Spouse.

Then to this earthen Bowl did I adjourn
My Lip the secret Well of Life to learn :
And Lip to Lip it murmur'd - "While you live
Drink! - for once dead you never shall return."

I think the Vessel, that with fugitive
Articulation answer'd, once did live,
And merry-make; and the cold Lip I kiss'd
How many Kisses might it take - and give!

Ah, fill the Cup : - what boots it to repeat
How Time is slipping underneath our Feet :
Unborn TO-MORROW, and dead YESTERDAY,
Why fret about them if TO-DAY be sweet!

And if the Wine you drink, the Lip you press,
End in the Nothing all Things end in - Yes -
Then fancy while Thou art, Thou art but what
Thou shalt be - Nothing - Thou shalt not be less.

Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring
The Winter Garment of Repentance fling :
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To fly - and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing.

Happy Easter.

Frock me, Amadeus

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 01:29:10 GMT

You've probably already seen the newly-discovered portrait of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

One of the most important pieces of evidence for the painting being of Mozart was this letter of his to Baroness von Waldstadten from Vienna, 28 September 1782:
(Mersmann/Bozman translation: London, 1928)

"...That beautiful red coat which took my fancy so vastly, pray, pray let me know where it is to be had, and at what price—for that I have quite forgotten, having been unable to take in anything at the time but its splendor! Indeed such a coat I must have—one which will really do justice to certain buttons with which my fancy has long gone pregnant! I saw them once, when I was choosing buttons for a suit, in the Kohlmarkt at Brandau's button-shop, opposite the Milano. They are made of mother-of-pearl, with some sort of white stones around the edge and a fine yellow stone set in the centre of each. I should like to have all my things of good quality, workmanship, and appearance! How is it, I wonder, that those who have not the means would be prepared to spend any amount on such articles, while those who have the means— do not do so!..."

The scholarly conclusion: Mozart shopped like a girl. Or a Goth. I'd hazard a guess that after reading that, a good few people on my Friends list will be feeling a sudden kinship for the man.

I like his metaphor about the buttons impregnating his fancy. In a later letter Mozart thanked the Baroness "for having immediately taken so much trouble over the beautiful coat." She was a patroness of his, so she probably helped him purchase both the coat and the much-coveted buttons. A button which seems to match his precise description, with part of a second, can be seen on the far lapel of the coat in the new portrait.

Next time I'm in Vienna, I think I'll take time to visit Mozart's memorial (the exact location of his grave is, of course, unknown) and leave him a suitably fabulous button.

Testify!

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 18:14:21 GMT

John Kelly's Voxford is the blog of an American journalist living in Oxford. It features gargoyles, spats with the Daily Mail and general bemusement with British life.

If not for him, I never would have known that Italian men are no longer permitted to ward off bad luck by touching their genitals in public.

This superstition, "Io mi tocco i..." seems vaguely equivalent to the British "touch wood" (no, really.) It's tempting to think that it may have its roots in the ancient Roman practice of grasping one's testicles to swear an oath, though some say the entire notion is bollocks.

In the words of Jo Brand: "I've done a bit of research and I've found that even today, if you grasp a man's testicles he will swear an oath."

Lasciati almen veder, mio bell'amore

Sat, 08 Mar 2008 02:09:20 GMT

Yesterday and the day before, as I sat in the Sheldonian listening to the bazillion-hour rehearsal of Don Giovanni, I thought about my long, chequered history with this opera.

Rewind to the '80s: my teenage self on a sofa, watching the Salzburg Festival production on TV: von Karajan at the helm, Sam Ramey as the Don, Julia Varady as Elvira. In retrospect I can see that there were a good few flaws in this production, but to this day whenever I think of the character of the Don, Ramey's is the face he wears.

Fast-forward: my first year at Oxford, and I'm singing in the chorus of a disorganised Don Giovanni that goes badly wrong. Bitching, infighting and throat infections all feature. justpolina manages to retain some dignity as Donna Elvira, which is an accomplishment.

Wind on-- there go the Met's Zeffirelli production and the one at Covent Garden which I reviewed for Metro (Ramey and Terfel, respectively). Press Pause in 2005: I'm engaged as language coach on a production in Oxford, directed by the same guy who did the one in my first year. It's 2 weeks to the show and he has yet to call a stage rehearsal. I sense a tape loop.

Wind on: I've agreed to take over as director of the postponed production. I know I can't do this. I'm filled with dread. I have to tell them I can't do it-- have to tell them soon, so they can get someone else. I run into two cast members in the street who ask me when rehearsal is and say how much they're looking forward to it. They have these big, expectant eyes... I answer: "Tuesday."

Fast forward again. We have to find a new Giovanni, a new Zerlina, a new music director... the producer's a rank incompetent, and I'm having to do most of his job for him despite knowing I can't organise worth shit. We've all become friends with chaos. I'm postponing the inevitable breakup, because if there's one thing worse than directing your partner, it's directing someone you've just broken up with.

October 2005: wearing black, exhausted, I'm sitting there with a huge grin on my face in front of a stage and an orchestra watching the people I've worked with for most of the past year tell the story at last. I can't feel a thing except ferocious pride in them. Laughter and applause are as loud in my ears as Mozart's music. Holy shit, guys, we did it.

Fast forward again to the hot days of last summer. I'm in the gods at Covent Garden, listening to Erwin Schrott sing the Serenade. The house is darkened; the only lit objects are Schrott in his blood-red coat, the conductor and mandolin player in the pit, and the girl on the balcony. The notes of the mandolin hang in the air like stars. This is perfect, I think, not forgetting the one who sits at my side.

And now we're at yesterday, and you've seen this part, so we can hit Pause and make a cup of tea. But in the wake of yesterday I'm certain: nothing can kill this opera for me. And for the first time, Mozart brings the same kind of fire to my veins that Shakespeare does; and for the first time I think I may be OK with thinking of myself fully as an opera singer rather than a half-regretful actor manquée. That's the story so far.

I have absolutely no doubt that my future holds yet more weird shit involving this opera. I really don't want to find out for at least another couple of years, though. That's Don Giovanni: bringer of weird shit into all the lives he touches. No wonder he and I have such a magnificently fucked-up relationship.

Don Giovaaaaaaaanniiiiiii

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 11:12:00 GMT

The opera over and Don Giovanni safely in hell, I thought I'd share a few stories.

First of all, our non-Anglophone Don turns out to rule. This production apparently lost its Giovanni and Leporello the week before the show, and 2 excellent guys stepped in: the wonderfully-named Carmelo Corrado Caruso as Leporello, and this guy Pietro as Giovanni. Pietro's 26, has just won a competition and, I think, is certain to go far. In addition to being madly talented, he's incredibly lovely to work with. He did well at the fighting-- had this genuine undisguised eagerness to please and to do well at things-- and was generally lovely to everyone beyond the normal performer's courtesy.

Which was good, because yesterday was INSANE. The performance had originally been billed as a "semi-staged" concert performance, but the conductor kept asking for more and more bits of staging to happen, so by the end of the day it was basically a fully staged production, except without costumes. The flaw here: there was no stage director. The conductor initially thought he could do it all himself just by ordering people around, but obviously he wasn't in a position to put his ideas into practice easily, so all the nuts and bolts of staging an entire opera in two days fell to the production manager, my friend Danae, who has extraordinary abilities but was getting more and more stressed. So I said: "Anything I can do?"

I was originally down just to sing in the chorus and supply a few props (masks and swords.) On Wednesday, I morphed into fight director and unofficial translator. On Thursday we rehearsed from 9.30 to 5.30 and I found myself promoted to all of the above plus: hairdresser to the soprano, props girl, running crew, and person-who-gets-earnestly-asked-questions-like-they-know-what-they're-doing-or-something.

Probably the highlight of this job was when Pietro beckoned me over and asked with a sort of lost-puppy expression, "Ci sono altri pantaloni?" It turned out he found his dress trousers too tight for all the movement he now had to do, and he feared they might split. So at 15 minutes to curtain, Danae and I had to search the male chorus for someone the same size as Pietro who was willing to surrender his trousers. That was fun.

Every opera I'm in lately seems to feature at least one detrousering. I wonder whether the Universe is trying to tell me something.

Sword for hire

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 19:16:48 GMT

I got up way too early this morning to get to Oxford's beautiful Sheldonian Theatre for 10AM, carrying the lovely weapons wyte_phantom was kind enough to lend to this week's production of Don Giovanni.

I ended up having to choreograph the fight myself, which I'd more or less expected. Luckily it's short-- only three exchanges and the Commendatore gets stabbed. The music tells you pretty clearly what to do.

What I didn't expect was that the baritone singing Giovanni is a non-English-speaker, so I had to do all the staging in Italian.

Cazzo diavolo.

Cut-and-trust

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 00:02:03 GMT

This weekend at SWASH, I watched a very interesting sidesword workshop given by Andrea Lupo-Sinclair, who on this occasion was rocking the beard-and-no-'stache look. Not many can get away with that look-- hell, even Abraham Lincoln had trouble with it-- but on Sinclair, it works.

Being Italian, he pronounces "thrust" as "trust." I thought: Yeah, that pretty much defines intimacy.

Poem of the day

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 07:45:31 GMT

Braggart

The days will rally, wreathing
Their crazy tarantelle;
And you must go on breathing,
But I'll be safe in hell.

Like January weather,
The years will bite and smart,
And pull your bones together
To wrap your chattering heart.

The pretty stuff you're made of
Will crack and crease and dry.
The thing you are afraid of
Will look from every eye.

You will go faltering after
The bright, imperious line,
And split your throat on laughter,
And burn your eyes with brine.

You will be frail and musty
With peering, furtive head,
Whilst I am young and lusty
Among the roaring dead.

--Dorothy Parker

TARDIS parking outside

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 16:00:29 GMT

Echo Park Time Travel Mart: for all your time-travel-shopping needs. Can of mammoth chunks? Barbarian repellent? Robot milk? Shame about the refreshments, though...

Yes, this is a real place-- in California (of course). One of the design guys blogs about it here. It's actually a shopfront for nonprofit literacy tutoring organisation 826; apparently all their tutoring offices are concealed behind surreal little shops. I have no words for how lovely this is.

I'd still let him temper my clavier

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 12:31:35 GMT

Face of Johann Sebastian Bach reconstructed from his skull, his portrait and some computer cleverness.

And he looks like an escaped sex offender.

Couldn't they have used the portrait of young, studly Bach instead? I know its attribution is doubtful, but I know which Bach I'd rather have smiling down at me as I work my way through the St John Passion.

Let us now praise famous bloggers

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 20:07:02 GMT

Long before I became a citizen of the blogosphere, I enjoyed reading the blog of a Minnesota stripper named Diablo Cody. She had a friendly, relaxed tone, and a beautiful sense of life's ridiculousness coupled with a turn of phrase sharp enough to puncture a breast implant. She shared, she overshared, she posted photos of herself in compromising positions, it was all good.

Who could forget her account of the philosophy professor who nearly had a heart attack when she asked him about Nagel's bat argument during a lap dance? Or her resoundingly glorious simile for the burden of expectation surrounding Valentine's Day: "Like fucking a guy who constantly asks 'are you going to come?'"

Of course, that fertile brain and razor wit landed her a book deal, and the book deal morphed into a movie deal. Even as I cheered her on, I'll admit that I slacked off reading-wise. There's no getting around it: witty reflections about the adventures of a stripper are way more interesting than equally witty reflections on the life of a successful author, well-earned though that success was.

Still, when the film she wrote, Juno, came out, I was happy about it. The screenplay won a BAFTA, then-- recently-- an Oscar. (Cody posted this excellent photo the morning after.)

Cody still blogs-- over at MySpace these days. Now that she's successful and all the fiercely indie kids have started a bit of an anti-Diablo backlash, I've perversely gone back to reading her. I'll let her have the last word:

"I get asked a lot why I've chosen to be so confessional as a writer. I've publicly documented aspects of my life that most people wouldn't reveal to their shrink, spouse, girlfriend, or partially deaf Dachshund. The stuff that polite folks confine to the pages of padlocked journals, I've treated as a matter of open discussion. I mean, I described my pussy in Candy Girl. I didn't do it just to be confrontational or freaky, even though I'd proudly tape both adjectives on my forehead. I did it because I thought there might be other girls reading who'd go, "Hey, I have an outie too!" (Not everyone has an adorable porno pussy, boys; someone's gotta rep for the outies.)

"I think that's what it's all about. When you possess the courage-- or blunt, gourd-smacking stupidity-- to be totally candid, you silently amass thousands of allies. It's the "me too" effect. As Steven Morrissey (Esq., Demigod) says, there is no such thing in life as normal. And if you walk around pretending to be normal, hiding your scars and incisions and putrescing wounds, you only further the Conspiracy of Normal, which exists to make us all feel like shit."
(29 Jan '08)

Well said, Diablo, well said. Bravo, sister.