Monday, March 04, 2013
I drove down to NYC Saturday morning, leaving at 6:30am to make a noon curtain at the Metropolitan Opera. The performance was the new production of Parsifal, Wagner's last opera and, like much of his work, still controversial politically and philosophically and very much open to a variety of interpretations.
That last point is not one that is embraced by a segment of the American opera audience that holds that there is one and only one way to do the great operatic works: the way they were done when they were first performed and the composer, presumably, approved. Time, they feel, must be frozen when it comes to producing opera, and that the productions must be done "as the composer intended." The fact that theatrical production techniques, including the way scripts (or librettos in the case of opera) are read and analyzed, have changed enormously since the great works were written means nothing to them.
What to do with the massive figure of Richard Wagner, who bestrode the 19th century performing arts like the proverbial colossus? He wrote the texts to his operas incorporating politics, philosophy, history, myth, religion psychology, and literature; write the music in the vanguard of the development of new styles in what he pretentiously but with dead accuracy termed "music of the future;" he often stage directed and/or conducted his operas along with having a major hand in their design. Wagner was the uber-creator, to use the "uber" that has become fashionable recently, and therefore his works should be staged today in accordance with everything he did, yes?
Well, no. Wagner was a restless, inquisitive, constantly evolving genius (in addition to being a thoroughly exasperating person on any number of levels) who was rarely satisfied with his own work, most famously when he told the cast of the first production of The Ring of the Nibelung that "next time everything will be different." Patrick Carnegy in his wonderful book, Wagner and the Art of the Theatre, is convinced Wagner realized that 19th century theater technology and production style in which he had always worked were simply inadequate to produce his works as he ideally envisioned them. Had he lived even another fifteen years, he would have seen advances in lighting, projections, costuming, and three dimensionality on stage he would have leaped at -- he was always drawn to the new and gave famous advice to those who would come after him, "children, make the new."
That's a good idea, applied to Wagner--or Verdi or Handel, or any opera composer, any playwright, or any stage director. We are not a 19th century audience; we don't know what they knew and don't attend the theater the way they did. Any reading of the history of opera will reveal that the interpretation of some of the greatest works has changed radically as society has changed. Carmen, for example, used to be an evil temptress who destroys an innocent young man for her own self-gratification. She is now seen as a strong, independent, thoroughly honest woman who is drawn irresistibly to the one man who has the potential of destroying her. That's one example -- the entire repertory is seen differently today than when the operas were premiered because we are very different people.
Director François Girard has conceived the MET's production as taking place partially in the never-healing wound in the side of the King of the Grail Knights, Amfortas. That wound, the cause and the symbol of the massive decline in the Holy Grail knighthood, dominates the production until the moment just before the opera ends when Parsifal, having recovered the spear that pierced the side of Jesus during the Crucifixion, restores it to the Grail Temple. A touch of the spear on the wound heals the wound and the way is clear to rebuilding the knighthood. In the striking photo below, Parsifal reunites the very male symbol of the spear with the very female symbol of the Grail cup. Here are two photos of the Metropolitan's new Parsifal.
Obviously, I am very open to contemporary production styles that build concepts on visual elements, including time periods and kinds of space in which to place the action, that do not resemble any of the traditional settings the composer may have known. Here are two comments on this new MET production that appeared on WagnerBlog, comments typical of reactionary invective:
Anonymous said...
Eurotrash has reared its ugly head, and this preposterous, jejune, imbecilical little exercise in pseudo-intellectuality is a somber omen. I watched clips from the Opera de Lyon, the original malefactor of this travesty, and it's a sight to see -if you want to get really depressed. I fear we as a society are so dumbed-down by now, are so out-of-touch with the greatness of this and other works, that spectators from now on will respond only to kitchy staging. It's really a microcosm of the demise of culture in general. So, let's thank our lucky stars for the previous Met production, still available on DVD.
Anonymous said...
I suppose Euro-trash Wagner shall now premiere at the Met. If my goal was to stage these Wagner's great works in a way that would open them to nothing but ridicule and laughter, I could hardly do better than what is generally being done today. Does anyone out there actually like this crap?? Maybe bring back the old vaudeville tradition of pelting the stage intermittently with tomatoes, eggs, cabbages...etc. would discourage productions such as these. The MET audience members better bring a good supply. It'll have to last four hours.
What to do with the massive figure of Richard Wagner, who bestrode the 19th century performing arts like the proverbial colossus? He wrote the texts to his operas incorporating politics, philosophy, history, myth, religion psychology, and literature; write the music in the vanguard of the development of new styles in what he pretentiously but with dead accuracy termed "music of the future;" he often stage directed and/or conducted his operas along with having a major hand in their design. Wagner was the uber-creator, to use the "uber" that has become fashionable recently, and therefore his works should be staged today in accordance with everything he did, yes?
Well, no. Wagner was a restless, inquisitive, constantly evolving genius (in addition to being a thoroughly exasperating person on any number of levels) who was rarely satisfied with his own work, most famously when he told the cast of the first production of The Ring of the Nibelung that "next time everything will be different." Patrick Carnegy in his wonderful book, Wagner and the Art of the Theatre, is convinced Wagner realized that 19th century theater technology and production style in which he had always worked were simply inadequate to produce his works as he ideally envisioned them. Had he lived even another fifteen years, he would have seen advances in lighting, projections, costuming, and three dimensionality on stage he would have leaped at -- he was always drawn to the new and gave famous advice to those who would come after him, "children, make the new."
That's a good idea, applied to Wagner--or Verdi or Handel, or any opera composer, any playwright, or any stage director. We are not a 19th century audience; we don't know what they knew and don't attend the theater the way they did. Any reading of the history of opera will reveal that the interpretation of some of the greatest works has changed radically as society has changed. Carmen, for example, used to be an evil temptress who destroys an innocent young man for her own self-gratification. She is now seen as a strong, independent, thoroughly honest woman who is drawn irresistibly to the one man who has the potential of destroying her. That's one example -- the entire repertory is seen differently today than when the operas were premiered because we are very different people.
Director François Girard has conceived the MET's production as taking place partially in the never-healing wound in the side of the King of the Grail Knights, Amfortas. That wound, the cause and the symbol of the massive decline in the Holy Grail knighthood, dominates the production until the moment just before the opera ends when Parsifal, having recovered the spear that pierced the side of Jesus during the Crucifixion, restores it to the Grail Temple. A touch of the spear on the wound heals the wound and the way is clear to rebuilding the knighthood. In the striking photo below, Parsifal reunites the very male symbol of the spear with the very female symbol of the Grail cup. Here are two photos of the Metropolitan's new Parsifal.
Anonymous said...
Eurotrash has reared its ugly head, and this preposterous, jejune, imbecilical little exercise in pseudo-intellectuality is a somber omen. I watched clips from the Opera de Lyon, the original malefactor of this travesty, and it's a sight to see -if you want to get really depressed. I fear we as a society are so dumbed-down by now, are so out-of-touch with the greatness of this and other works, that spectators from now on will respond only to kitchy staging. It's really a microcosm of the demise of culture in general. So, let's thank our lucky stars for the previous Met production, still available on DVD.
Anonymous said...
I suppose Euro-trash Wagner shall now premiere at the Met. If my goal was to stage these Wagner's great works in a way that would open them to nothing but ridicule and laughter, I could hardly do better than what is generally being done today. Does anyone out there actually like this crap?? Maybe bring back the old vaudeville tradition of pelting the stage intermittently with tomatoes, eggs, cabbages...etc. would discourage productions such as these. The MET audience members better bring a good supply. It'll have to last four hours.
Interestingly, neither commenter wishes to have his/her name connected to their comments. I place no value in anonymous critical comment.
Sunday, February 24, 2013
A few complaints were lodged on a friend's Facebook page just after the end of Downton Abbey's Season 4, because he had revealed that Matthew Crawley, played by Dan Stevens, had been killed in an automobile accident. Apparently in some areas there was a slightly different schedule, and some people complained that a "Spoiler Alert" label should have been put on top of my friend's item because now that they knew the ending, there was no reason to watch the last episode.
Actually, the scheduling of this series is rather strange. The DVDs of Season 4 were being hawked on PBS before PBS showed a single one of the Season 4 episodes. And reports were coming from England, where it is seen many months ahead of here, discussing some of the main plot points.
I have always wondered about the attitude that if you know the ending to a play or movie it's "ruined" for you. I have encountered it a lot, and it makes it seem as if every play, movie or opera is a "who done it." Perhaps, because I am in the theater/opera profession, I know that there is so much more going on in a production than just the outcome, the final scene. So, after all the complaints that my friend had ruined the latest series of Downton, I added this comment:
"Am I to take it that there is no value to seeing a dramatic presentation if one knows the ending in advance? The characterizations by the cast; the beauty, appropriateness and skill of the designs; the quality of the writing; the social relevance or political comment in the theme -- none of these is worth seeing and enjoying if you know that "he or she dies in the end?"
"OMG, I guess I just ruined a lot of Shakespeare, most of the Greeks, and the entirety of 19th century opera for you all!"
Actually, the scheduling of this series is rather strange. The DVDs of Season 4 were being hawked on PBS before PBS showed a single one of the Season 4 episodes. And reports were coming from England, where it is seen many months ahead of here, discussing some of the main plot points.
I have always wondered about the attitude that if you know the ending to a play or movie it's "ruined" for you. I have encountered it a lot, and it makes it seem as if every play, movie or opera is a "who done it." Perhaps, because I am in the theater/opera profession, I know that there is so much more going on in a production than just the outcome, the final scene. So, after all the complaints that my friend had ruined the latest series of Downton, I added this comment:
"Am I to take it that there is no value to seeing a dramatic presentation if one knows the ending in advance? The characterizations by the cast; the beauty, appropriateness and skill of the designs; the quality of the writing; the social relevance or political comment in the theme -- none of these is worth seeing and enjoying if you know that "he or she dies in the end?"
"OMG, I guess I just ruined a lot of Shakespeare, most of the Greeks, and the entirety of 19th century opera for you all!"
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Fritz is trying an experiment this winter, seeing if he can grow tomatoes indoors in our south-facing windows that build up quite a bit of heat on sunny days. The heat obviously isn't anything like a really hot summer day nor is there an equivalent amount of humidity, conditions tomatoes like in order to set fruit. This plant is the tallest at six feet; the flower cluster pictured is at about the four and a half foot level with other flower clusters coming higher up. He also has two shorter plants, a four and a three foot, and both have flower clusters. He's fertilized the flowers with a small water color brush I gave him and we'll see if we get anything.
Another weekend, another snow storm. Two weeks ago we had an extremely serious storm that prevented me from going down to New York for an opera to which I had a ticket at the Metropolitan. The storm was so devastating for audience travel that the MET, which has a lot of annoying fees involved with ticket purchase and exchange, offered out of towners a totally free even exchange that could be negotiated over the phone. I wasn't able to get a ticket to the same opera (Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore) but to another (Zandonai's Francesca da Rimini) that I've never seen on stage and always wanted to.
Today I have a ticket in Boston to another rather obscure opera by a very major composer, Benjamin Britten's Owen Wingrave. The storm isn't in a league with the big one two weeks ago and it is only an hour away. New Hampshire has a very good track record on keeping the major roads open, so I should be able to make this one.
Planning ticket purchases nine months to a year ahead, which you have to do with the Metropolitan, makes the buyer subject to unwelcome weather conditions and I do try to plan things with as few trips to New York as possible in heavy weather months (last winter, "The Winter That Never Was" was an incredibly helpful, but extremely rare event). Some MET productions only play in January and February so sometimes I just have to take a chance.
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Saturday, February 16, 2013
Reply I made to a thread on Facebook consisting of all the moth-eaten old idiocy that gay marriage destroys the institution of marriage, and that Christians will be forced to do things against their religion:
"To those who preach that same sex marriage harms heterosexual marriage, please produce:
"Proof that one, just one heterosexual marriage was terminated because gay people can get married, or that one wife told her husband she was leaving him because gay marriage rendered their marriage meaningless. Or:
"Proof that one engaged couple called their parents and said that since gays can marry there's no point for straights to marry any more, therefore they are canceling the wedding and just going to continue to live together.
"Hasn't happened! Heterosexuals have a strong track record of destroying marriage -- close to 50% of all heterosexual marriages end in divorce, and that statistic began BEFORE gay marriage ever existed. Wake up -- my husband and I are not the enemy. We believe in marriage. We believe in OUR marriage -- that's why we got married, not to destroy yours. Please use some common sense."
"To those who preach that same sex marriage harms heterosexual marriage, please produce:
"Proof that one, just one heterosexual marriage was terminated because gay people can get married, or that one wife told her husband she was leaving him because gay marriage rendered their marriage meaningless. Or:
"Proof that one engaged couple called their parents and said that since gays can marry there's no point for straights to marry any more, therefore they are canceling the wedding and just going to continue to live together.
"Hasn't happened! Heterosexuals have a strong track record of destroying marriage -- close to 50% of all heterosexual marriages end in divorce, and that statistic began BEFORE gay marriage ever existed. Wake up -- my husband and I are not the enemy. We believe in marriage. We believe in OUR marriage -- that's why we got married, not to destroy yours. Please use some common sense."
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Oh, this is just WAY too delicious! And it couldn't have happened to a more deserving Network.
Fox News appeared to have accidentally included a picture of a
lesbian couple kissing at their wedding, to accompany an article written
about traditional gender roles in marriage.
The column, titled, To be happy, we must admit women and men aren’t ‘equal’, written by Suzanne Venker, discussed a “new way” of thinking about gender, which was being preached by “feminists”, causing men and women to have “no idea who’s supposed to do what”.
Ms Venker wrote: “Being equal in worth, or value, is not the same as being identical, interchangeable beings. Men and women may be capable of doing many of the same things, but that doesn’t mean they want to. That we don’t have more female CEOs or stay-at-home dads proves this in spades.”
She effectively goes on to blame women for a “battle of the sexes”.
The image in question was of an Alaskan lesbian couple, Stephanie Figarelle and Lela McArthur, who got married at the top of the Empire State Building in 2012.
Fox News has since replaced the picture of the couple with a stock image of male and female symbols.
Suzanne Venker was the niece of conservative anti-gay leader, Phyllis Schlafly, who has spoken out against equal marriage in the past.
The column, titled, To be happy, we must admit women and men aren’t ‘equal’, written by Suzanne Venker, discussed a “new way” of thinking about gender, which was being preached by “feminists”, causing men and women to have “no idea who’s supposed to do what”.
Ms Venker wrote: “Being equal in worth, or value, is not the same as being identical, interchangeable beings. Men and women may be capable of doing many of the same things, but that doesn’t mean they want to. That we don’t have more female CEOs or stay-at-home dads proves this in spades.”
She effectively goes on to blame women for a “battle of the sexes”.
The image in question was of an Alaskan lesbian couple, Stephanie Figarelle and Lela McArthur, who got married at the top of the Empire State Building in 2012.
Fox News has since replaced the picture of the couple with a stock image of male and female symbols.
Suzanne Venker was the niece of conservative anti-gay leader, Phyllis Schlafly, who has spoken out against equal marriage in the past.
Monday, February 11, 2013
Clemency, a one act opera of about an hour's duration by Scottish composer James MacMillan, was co-commissioned by the Boston Lyric Opera and a handfull of companies in the UK. The U.S. premiere was in Boston last Wednesday night. The plot springs off the story of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar in the Old Testament. As Sarah hasn't borne any children, she suggests Abraham have sex with the servant Hagar to produce a child that Sarah can then take from her to be Abraham's heir. The child is Ishmael. Three angels arrive, are entertained at Abraham's place and reveal that, Sarah (who in 99 years old) will bear a child. The child is Issac. Sarah doesn't want Ishmael around as a rival to her own son as heir, so Hagar and Ishmael are driven away into the desert.
All this cruelty and dishonesty is apparently just fine with Jehovah/Yahweh/G*d. The angels turn out to be on their way to smite Sodom and Gomorrah and Abraham pleads for clemency for the cities should as few as five virtuous people be found there -- clemency he somehow isn't able to show to Hagar whom he has exploited sexually and then thrown out.
The opera was preceded by a performance of what is apparently Franz Schubert's earliest surviving song, Hagar's Lament, in which she wanders the desert desperate for water for her dying son. An angel (they seem to be everywhere) leads her to a well and her child is saved. The opera begins as soon as the song (actually a fifteen minute mini-drama) ends, joined to Clemency without any pause. I wonder if this is the way it was premiered in England. Hagar and her story cast a shadow on Abraham and Sarah for me. If the song was not part of MacMillan's plan, then Abraham's pleas for clemency would have had a lot more moral weight, at least for me.
I first encountered Mr. MacMillan's music via CDs of his full length opera The Sacrifice, a strongly dramatic piece with a fine score that I liked very much. I also liked the score of Clemency (which is being recorded live during the Boston run for commercial release). Aside from the Hagar, who was dramatic but rather strenuous vocally with wild top notes, the singing was superb. The three angels, sing in unison and were superb (two of them will appear in our company's performances of Benjamin Britten's The Prodigal Son in April). Christine Abraham was eloquent as Sarah and David Kravitz, who will sing Governor Winthrop next January in the opera for which Fritz and I have just finished the libretto, was tremendous -- thrilling -- as Abraham. The chamber orchestra sounded great as conducted by David Angus in MacMillan's compelling music.
A bonus for me was that the composer turned out to be sitting directly across the aisle from me. When the performance ended, I got to have a short but very pleasant chat with him, mentioning my regard for The Sacrifice. He was extremely nice and I hope we hear more of his music on this side of the Atlantic soon.
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Thursday, January 31, 2013
The question of whether or not same-sex marriage means "the end of gay" came up again on the comment section on a blog I read regularly. The lead-in subject this time was what to do about last names in a gay marriage. My reply was this:
"I've always said that when gays marry they make the "rules" for themselves and are not bound by heterosexual customs. Most of our friends keep their own names as Fritz and I have done. The husband of a very dear blogger friend of mine changed his last name as his family had treated him so badly he didn't want their name any more. Another couple of blogger friends joined their last names with a hyphen. It's all good, it's whatever they felt comfortable with."
The other question that comes up in relation to gay marriages is monogamy. To me this is a complete red herring. It's based on the fallacy that heterosexual marriage is monogamous, something that's been proven quite decisively to be untrue. To me this is another instance where gay couples decide for themselves the terms of their relationships with no obligation to toe anyone else's line.
It's entirely possible that my take on this issue is due to the fact that I was never a bar guy. That aspect of gay life never appealed to me. There was a great deal of smoking, drinking and outright alcoholism in my family. I saw the consequences. Health was broken, lives shortened. If bar culture is held to be the defining mark of gayness, then I guess I don't qualify.
I look at the new gay leaders, the senators and representatives, the writers, media personalities, the vibrant, creative couples like Dan Savage and Terry Miller and I don't see decline or the end of gay. I see a bright future for everyone, straight and gay, as society becomes richer by our full inclusion.
"I've always said that when gays marry they make the "rules" for themselves and are not bound by heterosexual customs. Most of our friends keep their own names as Fritz and I have done. The husband of a very dear blogger friend of mine changed his last name as his family had treated him so badly he didn't want their name any more. Another couple of blogger friends joined their last names with a hyphen. It's all good, it's whatever they felt comfortable with."
The other question that comes up in relation to gay marriages is monogamy. To me this is a complete red herring. It's based on the fallacy that heterosexual marriage is monogamous, something that's been proven quite decisively to be untrue. To me this is another instance where gay couples decide for themselves the terms of their relationships with no obligation to toe anyone else's line.
It's entirely possible that my take on this issue is due to the fact that I was never a bar guy. That aspect of gay life never appealed to me. There was a great deal of smoking, drinking and outright alcoholism in my family. I saw the consequences. Health was broken, lives shortened. If bar culture is held to be the defining mark of gayness, then I guess I don't qualify.
I look at the new gay leaders, the senators and representatives, the writers, media personalities, the vibrant, creative couples like Dan Savage and Terry Miller and I don't see decline or the end of gay. I see a bright future for everyone, straight and gay, as society becomes richer by our full inclusion.
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Gene Robinson, America's and New Hampshire's own first out gay Episcopal Bishop, retired recently and has moved to the nation's capital. He'll be working with the Center for American Progress, a progressive
research and policy organization, on issues of faith and gay rights.
He faced tremendous resistance, rejection by the Anglican Church in England, was slandered in certain parts of the media, and his safety, even his life was threatened. In what amounted to an exit interview with NPR, he had some revealing comments about his experiences and insights as the object of a lot of rejection and protest.
"The death threats were plentiful, almost daily for a couple of years.
And then more recently I prayed the invocation at the opening
inaugural event at President Obama's inauguration in 2009, and it was
about two weeks later I got a call from the Vermont State Police who had
almost accidentally arrested a guy who had been driving through this
small Vermont town and was in such a rage that he shot the windows out
of an empty parked police cruiser. And when they caught up to him, he
had in his passenger's seat, right next to him, MapQuest maps
right to our house. He had pictures of me and Mark, and he had scrawled
across them, 'Save the church. Kill the bishop.' And he had a sawed-off
shotgun and tons of ammunition."
"I think people often come to the synagogue, mosque, the church looking
for God, and what we give them is religion. And I think that is a huge
mistake, and sometimes we let our fussing around with the
institution get in the way of what people came for, which is help in
facilitating their access and relationship with God. On the other
hand, if you go off by yourself, then it can become a kind of
narcissistic enterprise, and you don't have people around you constantly
testing your understanding of God. That's what makes me believe
in the church, in the synagogue, in the mosque, because that's the
community of people that can help us understand better what our
perceived relationship with God is, and test it against all those many
ways in which we can try to shape it out of our own personality."
"Here's the part that most people don't know: When I was about 13
years old, this doctor who had delivered me — he was a pediatrician,
actually, and became my pediatrician -- always said two things when I
went to see him for a shot or a checkup. One was, 'You sure look better
than the first time I saw you,' and the second was, 'I had help from
above when I delivered you.' And when I was 13, he sat me down in his
office and he said, 'I'm going to tell you something that your
parents don't know, no one in the world knows this, but I — I want to
tell you this. He said, 'I looked at you, and you were a little monster.
You were so misshapen and your head was so crushed in that all I could
think about was your 20-year-old mother looking at your monster-like
face in your little coffin, and I just couldn't bear it. And I was so
sure you were going to die that I took your head in my hands and mushed
it back into as round a shape as I could make it so your mother wouldn't
be so horrified.' He said, 'Had I any notion that you were going to
live, I would never have done it, and I just think you ought to know
that, that your life was given to you by something far beyond me.' "
Somehow, he survived and he made a great deal of difference.
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Comments on Random Pictures from the Web
The first, and, I suppose the most likely, was Captain of the militia at Lexington Green when the first shots of the Revolution were fired -- in Massachusetts, be it noted and not New Hampshire as Michele Bachmann believes. He is recorded as saying to his men, "Stand your ground. Don't fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here." The British killed a cousin of his in the skirmish. Later that day he rallied his men to attack the regulars returning to Boston in an ambush known as "Parker's Revenge".
The other John Parker was the armed guard assigned to stand at the door to the box in Ford's Theater the night Abraham Lincoln was shot. Mr. Parker was absent from his post, allowing John Wilkes Booth to enter the box and shoot Lincoln. As one of the arguments of the NRA is that mass shootings can be prevented if there is someone with a gun to stop the shooter, this John Parker might have been chosen to demonstrate why their argument is valid. I don't really think he's what they had in mind but his place in history is interesting in this regard.
Glenn Beck is proposing something similar in Texas with an estimated price tag of $2 billion. I'm not a gun nut so I'm probably not qualified to comment, but I wonder what the quality of life in these hermetically sealed armed camps will be like. I imagine that at least some of the population will have to go out to work because I doubt the Citadel can support the entire population with just the gun factory and museum.
I have no idea who this is but he certainly is in great shape and the pose is quite beautiful in a way.
This was put on the web with this caption: Saudi Woman's Car.
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Murphy's Other 15 Laws
1. Light travels faster than sound. This is why some
people appear bright until you hear them speak.
2. A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for
doing well.
3. He, who laughs last, thinks slowest.
|
4. A day without sunshine is like, well, night.
5. Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.
6. Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don't.
7. Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool.
8. The 50-50-90 rule: Anytime you have a 50-50
chance of getting something right, there's a 90% probability you'll get it
wrong.
9. It is said that if you line up all the cars
in the world end-to-end, someone from California would be stupid enough to try
to pass them.
10. If the shoe fits, get another one just like
it.
11. The things that come to those who wait, may
be the things left by those, who got there first.
12. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day.
Teach a man to fish and he will sit in a boat all day drinking beer.
13. Flashlight: A case for holding dead
batteries.
14. God gave you toes as a device for finding
furniture in the dark.
15. When you go into court, you are putting
yourself in the hands of twelve people, who weren't smart enough to get out of
jury duty.
Friday, January 18, 2013
The snow storm we had earlier this week was very pretty and not overly difficult to shovel or snowblow. A few pictures:
A flock of ten wild turkeys spent quite a bit of time on the property picking through the snow to find seeds or other edibles in our gardens.
The blogger in lined jeans and leather clearing our parking area. The snowblower is an Ariens and a really great machine. The dealer told me a couple of months ago that I was lucky to buy it when Ariens was still making high quality machines; currently they're made in China with a lot of plastic parts and he no longer recommends them.
Our solar panels generally begin to clear themselves as soon as the sun hits them but the process can take an hour or so, during which we lose some valuable electrical production. I generally go up the hill as soon as I can when a storm is over and clear them with a big push broom. I took this picture just before I began to brush them clean.
Beech trees keep their golden fall color throughout the winter. In early spring the leaves are so dry that they make a clicking sound like a baby's rattle when the wind blows through them. The new buds swelling in mid-spring are what pushes the previous years leaves off in what looks like a shower of gold in the breeze.
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I'd ask what's wrong with this picture but it's painfully obvious. This is a section of the lower wall of the upstairs guest bathroom. It is also the bathroom I use when I am upstairs working in my studio. Since nobody ever comes up there when I'm working (Fritz generally wants to avoid any opera I might have playing while I'm there), I usually leave the door open. As this part of the wall is behind the open door, it took me a couple of years after the house was finished to spot this problem.
This kind of small tile comes mounted on sheets of mesh from the manufacturer, so it isn't the fault of the tiler, except that the tiler should have noticed the problem immediately and discarded the sheet. So I'm left with a question -- do I leave it alone or do I have the two tiles chiseled out, reset and grouted? Fritz advocates leaving it alone. So does a tradition in the weaving of magnificent "oriental" rugs and the setting of elaborate Muslim tile work -- as only Allah is perfect, there must be a small flaw purposely worked into any art so as not to challenge his perfection.
But now I know it's there, and it's bothering me. It's not the kind of thing that wakes me in the middle of the night. But whenever I go into that bathroom, I'm aware that there's a flaw down toward a corner of the wall, and that it contradicts the room's visual layout which is very Deco and therefore very geometric. Also, guests who use the room and close the door can see it very easily as they come out of the shower or sit on the toilet. On the other hand, nobody's ever mentioned to me so maybe nobody's ever noticed. But then again, maybe they did and are just being polite. All of these opposing points keep occurring to me. Suggestions?
The outdoor portion of the indoor/outdoor tree.
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This kind of small tile comes mounted on sheets of mesh from the manufacturer, so it isn't the fault of the tiler, except that the tiler should have noticed the problem immediately and discarded the sheet. So I'm left with a question -- do I leave it alone or do I have the two tiles chiseled out, reset and grouted? Fritz advocates leaving it alone. So does a tradition in the weaving of magnificent "oriental" rugs and the setting of elaborate Muslim tile work -- as only Allah is perfect, there must be a small flaw purposely worked into any art so as not to challenge his perfection.
But now I know it's there, and it's bothering me. It's not the kind of thing that wakes me in the middle of the night. But whenever I go into that bathroom, I'm aware that there's a flaw down toward a corner of the wall, and that it contradicts the room's visual layout which is very Deco and therefore very geometric. Also, guests who use the room and close the door can see it very easily as they come out of the shower or sit on the toilet. On the other hand, nobody's ever mentioned to me so maybe nobody's ever noticed. But then again, maybe they did and are just being polite. All of these opposing points keep occurring to me. Suggestions?
