Martern Faller Aparten

Un po' di pazzia

2006-03-16T10:44:00.000-05:00

This is some fucked up shit right here.

Basically, and I do know some of the players here, John Massaro appears to have gone completely batshit insane and is taking it out on the AD of AZ Opera.

Yiiiikes.

Speaking of dead people

2006-03-15T17:11:00.000-05:00

All I have to say about Milosevic's demise is: I sure wish I believed in hell. I hope he did. Couldn't happen to a nicer person.

One fuckwad less in the world is never a bad thing.

Bloggy day of mourning

2006-03-11T13:40:00.000-05:00

Beautiful soprano Anna Moffo has left us at age 73.

La Cieca has a tribute podcast.

The kind of thing that makes me want to stay over here

2006-03-03T10:34:00.000-05:00

All the way across the ocean, that is.

Scary. I'd sure like to hear from some Christians who are confident enough in their beliefs that they don't need this kind of bullshit.

Missouri legislators in Jefferson City considered a bill that would name Christianity the state's official "majority" religion.

House Concurrent Resolution 13 has is pending in the state legislature.

Many Missouri residents had not heard about the bill until Thursday.

Karen Aroesty of the Anti-defamation league, along with other watch-groups, began a letter writing and email campaign to stop the resolution.

The resolution would recognize "a Christian god," and it would not protect minority religions, but "protect the majority's right to express their religious beliefs.

The resolution also recognizes that, "a greater power exists," and only Christianity receives what the resolution calls, "justified recognition."

State representative David Sater of Cassville in southwestern Missouri, sponsored the resolution, but he has refused to talk about it on camera or over the phone.

Hey Johnny boy!

2006-03-03T06:35:00.000-05:00

This what you had in mind with that anti-torture legislation?

"Bush administration lawyers, fighting a claim of torture by a Guantanamo Bay detainee, yesterday argued that the new law that bans cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of detainees in U.S. custody does not apply to people held at the military prison."

Yeah, didn't think so. And here we have yet another example of the Bushies screwing John McCain as hard as they possibly can. Will he close his eyes and think of England this time, or find his nads under the bed and do something about it?

While I´m thinking of it,

2006-02-25T05:37:00.000-05:00

one more note on preparation in the opera business.

I am currently involved in a production for which we had exactly four days of rehearsal (for two casts).

If even one person had shown up unprepared, it would have turned into a huge clusterfuck. Moreover, the person would have been summarily fired.

In fact, REALLY knowing my role is the only thing that got me past the various language barriers, not to mention the experience gap (I´m working with a bunch of singers who have far better resumes than do I).

Make of that what you will. But hey, if you´re a soprano and sing my rep, feel free to show up not knowing your ass from your elbow. I´ll be happy to take your job.

Slow posting for a while longer

2006-02-24T07:13:00.000-05:00

As you´ve probably noticed, I´m traveling. Internet access will be spotty for a while, but I´ll post when I can. I´m in an unnamed country in Western Europe till April...

BRAVA DIVA!

2006-02-13T20:18:00.000-05:00

This is a really exciting singer to watch. The relevant paragraph:

"Soprano Marie-Adele McArthur possesses a striking voice - unified in its pleasing color, capable of tremendous range, strong enough to easily soar over the combined sonic mass of the orchestra and chorus, and used with acute intelligence. Her blend with the other soloists was admirable, and her sense of the dramatic in her solos was unerring."

YAY!

The Met's Traviata: A hunka hunka burnin' tenor

2006-02-11T20:56:00.000-05:00

Oh yeah...and some Verdi, too.

That's not meant to be flip. There was a lot - really a lot - of good music drama-making going on at the Met today. There was also some pretty serious frustration. You all are going to think I'm down on sopranos in general and Violettas in particular, and I promise you it isn't true. When the production was new, I thought Patricia Racette rose above its overdone stupidity to deliver an affecting and effective Violetta. I suspect when I see it again in April, Hei-Kyung Hong (at least, judging from her awesome Mimi) will leave me a puddle on the floor. But I have to get this over with right away so we can move on: Gheorghiu didn't do it for me, and I was expecting her to, based both upon previous experience of her and reviews from people I know & trust.

She is physically very striking, yes, with that pretty/ugly face and rad bod, and her costumes fit her perfectly (although I hate that pink thing in the first act and want to burn it) and she sings every note - Sempre libera, in particular, was taken at a VERY fast clip and was VERY cleanly and impressively done - and she clearly has a dramatic idea and a process. So what's my problem, anyway?

Number one, she was barely audible, and this from row M in the orchestra, where I've never had trouble hearing even Heidi Grant Murphy before (and uh...I had no trouble hearing Swenson as Violetta, I might add. I didn't LIKE a lot of it, but I could hear it perfectly clearly). And Holland complained in the NY Times that FLEMING was vocally undersized for the house? In today's NY Times, I note an article about future seasons under Gelb in which Gheorghiu is mentioned as Carmen, and I'm flabbergasted - her middle and low notes weren't powerful enough for Violetta today. How the fuck is she going to cope with CARMEN? She compounded the problem by singing upstage much of the time (and I mean UPSTAGE, as in facing backward). In addition, I'll bet Marco Armiliato wanted to smack her by the end of the performance - she rushed something fierce. He started "Ah, fors'è lui" at an already-rapid tempo, and when she came in she pushed it ahead even further. Granted, I prefer brisk and efficient to Flemingesque taffy tempi, but this gave the unfortunate effect of her not having enough breath to sustain the lines. Given that she appeared to be singing everything from about the neck up, I'm not surprised. Where's her support??? I remember her as putting out a pretty solid amount of lyric soprano sound before this.

Number two, she wouldn't fucking stand still. As I discussed with E, with whom I attended today, the new style of "opera acting" appears to be a bad case of what I call Tinkerbell the Wonder Fairy on crack - lots of arm waving and swaying (presumably to indicate "this is the part that's hard to sing?"), twitching and skipping around and flitting from place to place and never STOPPING, even when sitting down (or, in this case, lying down FUCKING DYING OF TB). Anna Netrebko's got a bad case of it, too. Note to soprani so afflicted: twitching isn't artistic, it's distracting. If in the second act you're flailing around like a twit and Germont is standing still and really communicating, the audience is going to watch HIM and just get annoyed with YOU, and that's just wrong...after all, the piece isn't called "Alfredo's dad." Oh yeah, and in that video of Gheorghiu as Violetta from - what - Covent Garden or something? She doesn't do this. She stands still and focuses in the important moments, and it gave me chills in the good way when I saw it, which is why I was expecting so much today.

Number three, and this is the hardest to describe, and I WILL move on after this paragraph, she wasn't real. It was all - at least to me - surface, all artifice and calculation, and none of the real warmth underneath that makes Violetta such a popular and sympathetic character. Also, that kind of artifice isn't sexy. I couldn't figure out why ANYONE would want to fuck her, and that's a bad thing when you're talking about a courtesan.

All right. There were other people onstage and in the pit, and it's time to talk about them. There's nothing to say about the production except that it's still overblown and a pain in the ass, except for the country house, which is pretty. One good thing: although they've kept the stupid dancers with the bull heads in Act II Scene 2, they have at least ditched the dancing cows with the padded buns and large, tacky udders. Thank heaven for small favors.

The big discovery of the day was tenor Jonas Kaufmann. Not only is he almost ungodly hot (even with the "Michael Bolton called and wants his hair back" coiffure), he's a passionate and committed actor with an excellent dramatic sense (need I even add that HE knows when to stand still?) and oh yeah, he sings like a fuckin' god (one of those "wow, when I close my eyes, he still sounds that good!" things). It's a big, warm, very baritonal sound that sounds like it won't go all the way up without tightening on him, but it does, oh, it does. He plugs in two high C's (one in his part of Sempre libera - go boy - and one at the end of the cabaletta) that are my favorite kind of high note. They won't please the squillo queens, because they're all depth and warmth, but they match the rest of his voice EXACTLY and they throb thrillingly. His Alfredo is very young indeed, and all of the choices the character makes flow naturally from that premise. He received - and deserved - the bulk of the applause.

It is often very difficult for me to find sympathy for Germont, as he is frequently played as a through-and-through stuffed shirt and something of a shit. Plus, for some reason, half the time whichever baritone it is barks his way through the role. Not so with Anthony Michaels-Moore, who first caught my attention as Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor a few years back. Big, beautiful, easy, ringy, warm voice that works from bottom to top (top being a big ass B flat or so plugged in gratuitously but fabulously at the end of the second act), and can the man ACT. His Germont isn't stiff because he's a stuffed shirt, he simply doesn't know how to treat Violetta when she turns out to be other than his expectation (although, bad director, never letting Germont embrace her is a very poor choice), and when he comes back in the last act the stiffness is gone and he's all paternal warmth. He got me in Di provenza, I started to cry (that's right. Not during Amami, Alfredo, during Di provenza), and in the gambling scene you could feel him simply quivering with fury at his son's behavior. I find that Michaels-Moore is being taken for granted in the reviews so far and it makes me want to go kick the reviewers, because, uh, a really fantastic Germont is not such a common thing that we can afford to dis one when he shows up, yanno? Bernard Holland in particular can suck it, for that snotty remark about whether Michaels-Moore doubts his ability to project in large spaces. Hey Bernie, the guy sings Jack Rance, ok, and from what I heard today he would have NO problem vocallly accomodating that role He knows the size of his own voice. Perhaps Holland was just bitchy because he couldn't hear the soprano in the big ensemble in the gambling scene, but uh...that was her fault for half-voicing it, not the fault of the tenor and baritone for being audible.

Other performers of note: John Hancock as a sexy, suave, dangerous Baron Douphol with a ringing voice (wow, he's tall. Like really tall. And oh yeah, HOT), Eduardo Valdes as the Marchese, funny and charming and graceful in a galumphing kind of way, and whoever the hell that was as Flora (can't find my program), great dresses, beautiful voice, loads of personality.

Marco Armiliato has got to be the most adorably cheerful guy on the podium today. He comes bouncing out at the beginning of every act looking like he's having a really great time and generally spreading good will all over the place. His conducting, while never achieving brilliance, is smooth and serves the score faithfully and makes the orchestra sound good and he pays attention to the needs of the singers and really, that's all he needs to do.

Eh, well, that's it. Look, Gheorghiu wasn't bad. I've seen bad Violettas, and she wasn't that. She just wasn't...well, she wasn't a Title Character, in caps, and the show had no real center as a result.

Just a random thought on the state of the art

2006-02-09T10:54:00.000-05:00

In the last few months, I've heard four or five stories from cast members about colleagues who showed up to rehearsals not knowing their roles.

Yup, you heard me, showing up to paid, professional gigs still having to have notes plunked.

These were people who signed the contracts anywhere from two months (PLENTY of time to learn a role, unless you're lazy as hell or abysmally stupid) to two years before rehearsals started.

There is just no excuse for this and there's almost nothing that makes me angrier about this biz. If you're that busy, start turning things down and do your goddamned homework. Do not waste your colleagues' time by doing a half-assed job and expecting everyone else to make accommodations.

No one is THAT gifted with the voice of the angels, that it makes up for poor preparation.

I am strangely excited

2006-02-09T10:07:00.000-05:00

about the influx of young'uns to the Jets' coaching and general managing positions.

After all, it can't possibly get WORSE.

...can it?

er...be mine?

2006-02-08T19:09:00.000-05:00

I'm sending these to all my fuckin' sappy friends.

Thanks EVER so to Mimi for the tip - these rock.

and yeah, yeah, yeah, I am the person who talks about how over-commercial it is and then whines when he doesn't get me a card. Get over it.

This is funny.

2006-02-08T12:37:00.000-05:00

Yes...yes...I too hate the use of "4" instead of "for," "2" instead of "to" and "u" instead of "you" that is ubiquitous on the interweb.

Ladies and gentlemen, with a hat tip to jesque for cracking my shit up today, may I present THE DEMOTICONS!

You want to know why I'm so angry?

2006-02-07T23:56:00.000-05:00

This is why I'm so angry.

Yes, I know, it's hard to click on links and read long and complicated articles that contain words of more than one syllable, especially if you're one of the knuckle-dragging fucknuts who supported this anti-American, hell, INHUMAN shit in the first place.

Lemme spell it out for you in a short sentence, composed of teeny tiny words.

Better, let Stuart Taylor do it, here, in a brief summary of the longer article linked above.

The relevant short sentence:

"Fewer than 20 percent of the Guantanamo detainees, the best available evidence suggests, have ever been Qaeda members."

Got that?

FEWER THAN TWENTY PERCENT have EVER been Qaeda members.

So we are LOCKING THESE PEOPLE UP INDEFINITELY AND TORTURING THEM FOR FUN, apparently. Or, no, excuse me, because Preznit Asshat says he just KNOOOOOWS they're bad people. Did I mention he can suck it?

So don't EVER again ask me why I'm so fucking angry. If you're not angry about this, you're either a sociopath or you're too stupid to leave the house unaccompanied, and in neither case do I have time for you.

Updated to add the following: it was pointed out to me in comments that I sound as though I'm only angry at these people being imprisoned indefinitely and tortured because they're unjustly accused. Good point. I wasn't clear. No, no, no. I don't care if they're Jeffrey Dahmer. Inhumane treatment is inhumane treatment and we have NO business treating fellow human beings in such a fashion. We get all over the tv talking about how much "better" we are than "those" countries...well, we'd better goddamned well start to act like it, hadn't we?

John McCain gets up on the wrong side of bed...again

2006-02-07T07:27:00.002-05:00

I can't believe I used to respect this asshole.

First, Obama, whom I DO respect, writes a letter, which reads in part:

"Thank you for inviting me to participate in the meeting yesterday to discuss lobbying and ethics reform proposals currently before the Senate. I appreciate your willingness to reach out to me and several other Senate Democrats to discuss what should be done to restore public confidence in the way that Congress conducts its business. The discussion clearly underscored the difficult challenge facing Congress... I know you have expressed an interest in creating a task force to further study and discuss these matters, but I and others in the Democratic Caucus believe the more effective and timely course is to allow the committees of jurisdiction to roll up their sleeves and get to work on writing ethics and lobbying reform legislation that a majority of the Senate can support. Committee consideration of these matters through the normal course will ensure that these issues are discussed in a public forum and that those within Congress, as well as those on the outside, can express their views, ensuring a thorough review of this matter." (click the link for the full letter, it's good).

for some reason, Johnny boy reacts to the above as though someone had pissed in his Wheaties (breakfast of champions!), and responds as follows (in part, click link for full letter - your jaw will drop at the rudeness of this motherfucker):

"I would like to apologize to you for assuming that your private assurances to me regarding your desire to cooperate in our efforts to negotiate bipartisan lobbying reform legislation were sincere. When you approached me and insisted that despite your leadership’s preference to use the issue to gain a political advantage in the 2006 elections, you were personally committed to achieving a result that would reflect credit on the entire Senate and offer the country a better example of political leadership, I concluded your professed concern for the institution and the public interest was genuine and admirable. Thank you for disabusing me of such notions with your letter to me dated February 2, 2006, which explained your decision to withdraw from our bipartisan discussions. I’m embarrassed to admit that after all these years in politics I failed to interpret your previous assurances as typical rhetorical gloss routinely used in politics to make self-interested partisan posturing appear more noble. Again, sorry for the confusion, but please be assured I won’t make the same mistake again."

Understandably confused, Obama, bless his sweet heart...takes the high road (same link as above, which actually contains the entire exchange), in full:

"During my short time in the U.S. Senate, one of the aspects about this institution that I have come to value most is the collegiality and the willingness to put aside partisan differences to work on issues that help the American people. It was in this spirit that I approached you to work on ethics reform, and it was in this spirit that I agreed to attend your bipartisan meeting last week. I appreciated then - and still do appreciate - your willingness to reach out to me and several other Democrats.

For this reason, I am puzzled by your response to my recent letter. Last Wednesday morning, you called to invite me to your meeting that afternoon. I changed my schedule so I could attend the meeting. Afterwards, you thanked me several times for attending the meeting, and we left pledging to work together.

As you will recall, I told everyone present at the meeting that my caucus insisted that the consideration of any ethics reform proposal go through the regular committee process. You didn't indicate any opposition to this position at the time, and I wrote the letter to reiterate this point, as well as the fact that I thought S. 2180 should be the basis for a bipartisan solution.

I confess that I have no idea what has prompted your response. But let me assure you that I am not interested in typical partisan rhetoric or posturing. The fact that you have now questioned my sincerity and my desire to put aside politics for the public interest is regrettable but does not in any way diminish my deep respect for you nor my willingness to find a bipartisan solution to this problem."

There we go, John. Aren't you proud? You've just publicly proven yourself to be a spoiled baby who throws a tantrum when he doesn't get his way.

Bipartisan cooperation, my white ass. What you mean is "everyone does what I tell them to and we call it 'bipartisan.'"

God fucking forbid McCain ever becomes president. The word "jerk" was invented to describe him. I defended his actions for years, but I've just washed my hands of him. Let him drown in his own pomposity.

Every year, I await this with bated breath.

2006-01-30T15:47:00.000-05:00

Buffalo Beast's 50 Most Loathsome People in America.

This year, someone besides me finally said it: Tom Friedman is a fucking moron. THANK YOU BUFFALO BEAST! I'm so sick of him I'd like someone to make him eat that goddamned stupid looking mustache.

Il Vecchio speaks

2006-01-28T01:07:00.000-05:00

You listen. Read. Whatever.

I'd like to expand upon the importance of "grit" in the opera biz, if I may. I've not only actually pursued a career in this for several years (and after beating my head against a brick wall till I bled repeatedly, I may finally be catching up to it, a little), I've watched fairly closely as other singers pursued it with varying levels of success.

One factor that the successful ones (that is to say, the ones who finally end up making a full-time living singing opera on major stages. Not necessarily the Met, mind. Many of them are linked at right) all have in common (besides the talent, one and the technique to sustain a high level of singing over a long period of time, two) is this: an almost pathological unwillingness to believe they will not succeed. It's a kind of denial, but I do not mean that in a bad sense. It's an assumption that if they keep at it, eventually it will happen, so with that out of the way, let's get to work.

Obviously, it's very difficult, with just the above, to distinguish between the successful ones and the, well, delusional ones (you know the ones I mean. We've all seen them. They're still showing up at Young Artist auditions well into their forties). I've tried for a long time to think of a way to describe the difference - again, aside from basic talent (some of the loonies have the vocal goods, but are crazy in other ways that make them unhireable). Il Vecchio nailed it, though. It's grit. It's the simple refusal to fail combined with an unfailing work ethic and a kind of singleminded focus on the goal - and when today's goal is achieved, the focus moves on to the next goal, and so on, and so on.

You might think these people would be hugely self-involved, narcissistic asshats, incapable of talking about anything but themselves, their voices and their careers.

You'd be wrong. By and large and with the very occasional exception, the successful singers I know and admire are some of the nicest, most honest, most caring, most refreshing people I've met in a long time.

Just a late night musing. Good night. May be light posting next week (hell, it's been light all month. Sorry about that). I'm traveling. Be back just in time to see da Steelahz kick the living shit out of the Seahawks, I hope.

Holy shit, dude.

2006-01-27T16:18:00.000-05:00

Go read this.

Please, please tell me I'm overreacting to think that there's another planned use for these than "sudden influx of immigrants."

Please. I'd appreciate it. This is like my worst tinfoil hat nightmare come to life.

Is this ever going to end?

Updated: link fixed, it's a reuters link now, sorry about that. D'oh!

Happy birthday, Mozart!

2006-01-27T08:34:00.000-05:00

I think we should have cake.

Depending on the cast,

2006-01-23T21:07:00.000-05:00

I can understand sneaking out of the Met's Boheme to do it in the ladies' room.

Good for you, Drew!

If you voted Republican in the last election,

2006-01-23T07:21:00.000-05:00

You voted to give our troops contaminated water.

Oh yeah, and then to refuse to tell them about it.

Oh - oh yeah, and then to refuse to hold hearings. Thank goodness for the Dems, who are trying to bring this into the light.

The next self-righteous schmuck who tells me how much the preznit and the GOP caaaaaare about the troops is going to get socked right in the face.

Awesome.

2006-01-22T23:50:00.000-05:00

Pantsless subway rides. Why didn't I think of this?

HA HA HA HA HA

2006-01-17T15:40:00.000-05:00

Best. Blonde Joke. Ever.

After reading about eight different accounts of it,

2006-01-12T13:54:00.000-05:00

my considered opinion of Mrs. Alito's crying jag is this: buck up and grow a pair, babe, or get out of the room.

Yes, I realize I sound callous and hardhearted. But - above and beyond the very serious question of whether or not it was staged for effect - what the hell did she think was going to happen at the hearings? Did she think her hubby would stand up there and all the Senators would line up to french kiss his ass? Granted, yes, that does seem to be the GOP's strategy, but for fuck's sake. Alito hasn't been subjected to anything even remotely resembling what, for example, Ruth Bader Ginsburg had to go through to get confirmed.

AWWWWWWWWWWW

2006-01-11T17:24:00.000-05:00

Nasty...cynical...heart...pierced...

just...too...CUTE...

Arlen Specter: Dumb as a Box of Hair

2006-01-11T14:47:00.000-05:00

Jesus, Arlen, that's just embarrassing.

If you're going to deny receiving a letter from Senator Kennedy requesting that CAP records from the time of (Sc)Alito's membership be subpoenaed, better first make sure you didn't respond to it.

What a dumbass.

Updated to add: Oh, for christ's sake...Specter now is whining that Senator Ted should've brought it up when they were AT THE GYM? C'mon, Arlen, Ted doesn't work out and you know it. (yes, that's a joke)

Bloggy day of mourning

2006-01-11T11:04:00.000-05:00

The great, good and very, very funny Birgit Nilsson has left us.

Shit, meet fan.

2006-01-10T10:56:00.000-05:00

China's backing off the dollar.

I'm probably correct in thinking this is NOT good.

Stupidity Ahoy!

2006-01-10T00:34:00.000-05:00

Lemme get this straight.

The Jets are not interviewing Mike Sherman, who is a class act whose teams actually sometimes win games.

The Jets are, however, interviewing massive asshole, Bushie and bad coach Mike Tice.

Can I get a "WHAT THE FUCK?????"

If you've just joined us,

2006-01-07T14:46:00.000-05:00

Please read this before reading any other postings on this blog.

If strong opinions make you very uncomfortable,

If you call your singing voice "the voice,"

If you think it's just...just...WRONG...to criticize another singer, to dislike a performance - and say so - or to state an honest opinion unless that opinion is an unqualified rave, because heaven fucking forbid anyone should do the same about you,

If you take yourself so very seriously that you have been rendered incapable of recognizing hyperbole when you see it,

You're going to be a lot happier reading some other blog. I'm too cranky to pull punches; furthermore, I think everyone saying "wasn't that wuuuuuuuuunnerful" about performances that are frankly crappy are exactly what's wrong with the opera biz. I get bad reviews too, people, and you'd better believe I know when I deserve them (whooo, boy, do I know it) and when I don't. Grow a thicker skin, develop a critical ear, both for yourself and for others, don't settle for mediocrity when excellence is called for, and stop being such a bunch of pussies, or go find something else to do. The business will be better for it, and so will you.

Oh yeah, and if you think *famous singer name here* gives a rat's ass about someone she's never heard of criticizing her on a blog about six people read, you have a vastly overinflated idea of this blog's importance. Thank goodness I don't. In the grand scheme of things, this is just my little playground...and I'm going to run it the way I want to run it. Doesn't make you a bad person if you don't want to read it. Another site is just a click away.

All of this, of course, is said with the milk of love and kindness flowing in my veins, or perhaps in my tits.

Rant over. Back to your regularly scheduled blogging.

Met Rigoletto, Tuesday, December 13

2006-01-05T13:02:00.000-05:00

If anyone reading this was at that performance (it was the one before the broadcast), I'd be very interested in reading your comments on Raul Mélo. Please post 'em in comments or, if you know my email address, feel free to send 'em there.

Grazie tante.

Big shocker: Bush fucks over McCain...again.

2006-01-04T13:58:00.000-05:00

Hey Senator John, when the hell are you going to learn that this bunch will screw you every. single. time? Do you LIKE being hung out to dry or something? Do they have pictures of you screwing an elephant? Did they kidnap your cat? What the fuck's it gonna take, man?

...of course, did we REALLY think Bushy-Wushy was gonna let that party pooper of principle spoil his torturin' fun?

Boy, this is really a new low.

WASHINGTON -- When President Bush last week signed the bill outlawing the torture of detainees, he quietly reserved the right to bypass the law under his powers as commander in chief.

What the fuck?!?

2006-01-03T14:57:00.000-05:00

Ok, I have now heard firsthand (as in, by people who were involved) about two separate opera companies in the last six months who hired singers under WRITTEN contract to perform a certain role for a certain fee, and then welshed on paying the fee after the role was performed (actually, in one case, the check bounced).

If there's a good - or even a reasonable - excuse for this, I'd sure like to hear it.

Hey, moron AD's and GD's out there, DON'T MAKE THE OFFER AND SIGN THE CONTRACT IF YOU CAN'T PAY THE SINGERS, you fucknuts.

...edited to add...three. THREE companies. THREE. Updated after checking in with the person in comments.

One of them was sort of a startup, but the other two were NOT.

Hi, people, THIS IS NOT OUR GODDAMNED HOBBY.

and a Happy New Year to us all

2006-01-01T14:53:00.000-05:00

Byron Calame, the current New York Times Public Editor (whose tenure thus far has made Dan Okrent look like the bumbling, pompous asshat that he is), is pissed (New York Times, registration, Bugmenot, blah blah).

"THE New York Times's explanation of its decision to report, after what it said was a one-year delay, that the National Security Agency is eavesdropping domestically without court-approved warrants was woefully inadequate. And I have had unusual difficulty getting a better explanation for readers, despite the paper's repeated pledges of greater transparency.

For the first time since I became public editor, the executive editor and the publisher have declined to respond to my requests for information about news-related decision-making. My queries concerned the timing of the exclusive Dec. 16 article about President Bush's secret decision in the months after 9/11 to authorize the warrantless eavesdropping on Americans in the United States.

I e-mailed a list of 28 questions to Bill Keller, the executive editor, on Dec. 19, three days after the article appeared. He promptly declined to respond to them. I then sent the same questions to Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the publisher, who also declined to respond. They held out no hope for a fuller explanation in the future."

As I said when the Judith Miller story happened, Bill Keller should be summarily fired, and that little shit Sulzberger should resign in shame.

Yes, yes, I know.

2005-12-30T13:06:00.000-05:00

I realize I haven't blogged in a week and a half. Family obligations kept me hors de computer most of the time. What's really scary is that I got several emails asking me if I was dead. I didn't even realize more than three or four or six people read this thing.

Nothing much to say yet, except that I'm back from the wilds of Paranoid Redneck Central. I actually had a great time, and everyone should go see the new Narnia movie, it's beautiful (I want to be Tilda Swinton when I grow up).

Shopping, however, is something else entirely. I mean...black velvet gaucho pants. Someone actually thought this up and, instead of running screaming off a cliff as any NORMAL person would've, said "gee, bet we could sell these..."

Gah.

I would've blogged the Preznit's speechifying,

2005-12-18T23:17:00.000-05:00

but there's only so much pukin' one girl can do in a day, and the Jets already lost. I admit it, I didn't even watch the lastest atrocity.

I will just state for the record that interrupting a new episode of "The Family Guy" is fucking unamerican.

One of those "who the hell did she blow" moments

2005-12-17T15:41:00.000-05:00

So here we are, finished with Act II of the Metropolitan Opera's broadcast of Rigoletto.

Anna Netrebko is, bar none, the worst Gilda I have EVER heard, and I have heard some doozies.

I mean...this is awful, and a marked change from her singing in War and Peace, two years ago. Her tone is droopy and swallowed and there's not a clear vowel in the bunch, she can't sing legato, she can't move her voice with any clarity, and um, she ain't got any high notes. No, Gilda isn't about the high notes, but um, she has to have a few. What isn't swallowed is screamed.

Please kill me.

Is Guelfi always this nasal, or is it just over the speakers?

Villazon is showing attractive, if somewhat thick, tone, good phrasing and nice legato. Hard to know if the voice is the size it sounds like over the speakers (er, not from what I hear from audience members, it isn't, but that house is just too fucking big anyway).

A Titanic-themed holiday party?

2005-12-14T09:40:00.000-05:00

I'm guessing that irony...not so much a concept the Fox News team understands.

*snort*

THE JETS FINALLY WIN ONE!

2005-12-11T16:08:00.000-05:00

OHMYFUCKINGGOD, 26-10 over the Raiders.

Yeah, ok, the Raiders suck. But until today, the Jets sucked more...a LOT more.

Not only did the Jets win, they played the shit out of the game. Bollinger ran for 56 yards and like 3 first downs, for fuck's sake. Two combined running backs, Askew and Houston, ran for something like 140 yards, put together (Askew ran for about 50 during ONE DRIVE). The defense sacked the poor Raiders' qb SIX times and created FOUR turnovers, and the offense turned three of those into points (the fourth happened in the last second of the game, or we'd have scored there too).

This feels ridiculously good. We're still 3-10, we're still not going to the postseason for the first year since Edwards started coaching us, but by god we won today.

Big Dawg nails Bush's nads to wall

2005-12-09T17:28:00.000-05:00

Film at eleven

An Interminable - I mean American - Tragedy at the Met

2005-12-09T16:51:00.000-05:00

Oy.

It's a very bad sign when midway through the first act I find myself longing for the tunes of Bolcom.

Also a very bad sign when I drop off to sleep in the middle of an aria...SUNG BY DOLORA ZAJICK.

I never thought of Dreiser's "An American Tragedy" as a book that particularly cried out for an operatic treatment (but hey, what do I know, I never thought of "The Great Gatsby" that way either, and um...I was right). It's more a social statement that remains relevant.

Tobias Picker has written a piece that would be very enjoyable if it were 90 minutes to 2 hours long. Unfortunately, it clocks in at a whopping three hours and ten minutes, including one fifteen-minute intermission, and much of the music feels like filler. Arias, duets and ensembles are all too long by half, and he writes in a meandering, pseudo-tonal idiom without much line or melody to it (MY KINGDOM FOR A FREAKING TUNE once in a while). Leitmotives appear in fits and starts and never really reach a recognizable point. The aria for Roberta that opens act 2 is, for my money, the best piece in the show - it hangs together well and is a very effective piece, showing off Patricia Racette's strengths beautifully. Unfortunately, by that time, we're two hours in and my right leg has gone numb and is all tingly. Picker also has a very bad habit of putting the most important words on extremely high notes (except in the case of Zajick, for whom he put them on extremely low notes), which is a hackneyed, overobvious and WAY overused effect - by the third or fourth time it happened, I was sick to death of it. And that was only in scene 2.

The production, by Francesca Zambello, is tight and clearly directed, with the exception of one very ill-conceived effect during the climactic scene - the extremely cool set is in two levels (with panels! I like panels! No, really, I do), and the fateful canoe trip takes place on the second. Roberta tumbles out of the canoe and a panel slides aside on the first level to reveal her, in a flying harness, strugging to get back to the "surface" (the water is indicated rather well by the lighting). Um...only problem was, she looked like Cathy Rigby at Madison Square Garden, about to burst into "I'm flying!" or "I gotta crow." I wasn't the only one who giggled, either. Either Zambello or Picker (could be both) obviously appreciates the movie "Jacob's Ladder" - at the very end, Clyde's nine-year-old self leads him up the stairs to the electric chair (thankfully, we were spared the sight of his actual electrocution).

Sets and costumes, except for the horrible lavender thing they made poor Jennifer Aylmer wear, are all period-appropriate, colorful and well-fitting. I could've done without the determinedly out-of-sync dancers, but I'm sure they were somehow vital to the concept.

The singing, by and large, was excellent, especially from Racette (Roberta Alden), Susan Graham (Sondra Finchley), William Burden (by far the most effective cast member, as Gilbert Griffiths the spoiled brat), Dolora Zajick (as Elvira, Clyde's mother), and Aylmer (as Bella, his cousin - and the only singer whose words were consistently comprehensible - her role was the only one for which the text was usually set in her middle range, rather than at the low or high extreme), Kim Begley, whom I liked much better here than in Jenufa, and Jennifer Larmore, who was surprisingly, effectively nasty as Clyde's snotty aunt (and sang very well inded).

Anna Christy was shrill, pitchless, perktastic and annoying (when is she not?) - she may have been hired for the role of the obnoxious chambermaid because that's what she does best. Richard Bernstein's voice is gone, gone, gone, gone, what a mess, all he has left is overacting.

Nathan Gunn is certainly very pretty (though for my money he's not even in the same class of attractive as Simon Keenlyside, grrrrrowl). His chest is awfully...smooth...though, and he looks about fifteen years old - both Graham and Racette looked like beautiful grown-up women, which gave the disturbing impression that they were molesting a teenager in the kissy parts. Gunn's voice is nice enough, and he doesn't suffer from "Rodney Gilfry Syndrome" (wherein one's abs are so very developed that one can't expand the area to breathe, creating approximately two-word phrases and very dry tone), but he isn't always audible and changes of emotion didn't register well, particularly during the scenes in which he was deciding what to do about his little Roberta problem.

I can't remember the boy soprano's name (young Clyde), but he was really delightfully good.

Can't see this one entering the repertory. Why the hell doesn't the Met do "The Handmaid's Tale," which at least makes up its mind whether to be tonal or not? (it's not)

I...um...well.

2005-12-09T16:20:00.000-05:00

I don't even know what the appropriate reaction would be to this.

Except that it brings all new meaning to "ho-ho-ho."

Bill O'Reilly still batshit crazy

2005-12-07T16:50:00.000-05:00

Story at ...well, right now.

I dunno about you, but O'Reilly brings me horror every time I have to look at his splotchy face...

Go shorty, it's your bat mitzvah

2005-12-06T11:04:00.000-05:00

We gonna party like it's your bat mitzvah.

Priceless.

How many years will it take

2005-12-05T15:12:00.000-05:00

before we as a nation stand up and apologize, loudly and profusely, for this?

What will it take for us to realize that extraordinary rendition is wrong, wrong, wrong, and that we must stop and prosecute those who are participating in it?

Someday, it could be you they "disappear" to another country. Do we really want to use, yanno, Guatemala as a role model???

Dana Priest has done excellent reporting in the above-linked article. Go read it, and then cry for your lost innocence and our lost honor as a nation. I did.

Roméo et Juliette at the Met

2005-12-02T11:51:00.000-05:00

Oy.

It was so almost good.

Now - it was better than I thought it would be. I went in full of fear and trepidation that Dessay, one of my sacred cows, would come out as hamburger. Thankfully, that wasn't so.

One does wonder whether Guy Joosten even read the libretto, though, because the staging was largely stupid and the fight scene in particular was incredibly irritating. I mean, hi - if Romeo doesn't interfere in the fight between Tybalt & Mercutio and um, distract Mercutio so he gets stabbed, whyyyy does Mercutio say "A plague on both your houses - why did you interfere?" And um...the whole point is that everyone sees Romeo stab Tybalt, not that Romeo somehow ducks and makes Tybalt stab himself.

These were only the most egregious of the staging sins, though. There were a multitude of somewhat lesser ones. Why would anyone put Ramon Vargas in purple velvet, fer heaven's sake? Why would anyone stage Juliette to strip down to her slip during the wedding scene - and have the guests utterly fail to react? What was with having people leave the stage when other people were talking to them?

The floating bed effect was very pretty, and the first R/J duet was, I thought, charmingly staged as a children's game (this is, by the way, the first time I've ever seen R&J convincingly staged as the very, very young people they are), so there were a few consolations. Not many, though.

Oh yeah, and the floating solar system thingy in the wedding scene? It clicked. Loudly. During some of the most beautiful music in the piece. Can we oil that thing, or better yet, kill it entirely?

On to the music:

This is the first time I have heard Bertrand de Billy conduct a French piece. What a difference from the other things I've seen him do! He has a terrific touch for this music, and was decidedly supportive of the singers - the ebb and flow of the piece sounded very natural and the orchestra was very much together. Not so the chorus, but that's par for the course at the Met these days (and a couple of those entrances are seriously tricky, especially if you're having to do stupid staging).

Natalie Dessay, as I mentioned above, is a sacred cow for me, and she DID sing the piece to the very best of her ability, make no mistake. Unfortunately, in doing so, she proved that Juliette is not a high coloratura piece. Dessay's high notes are, as always, big and sparkling, but this is a very specialized sound, and she doesn't even really have enough middle voice to sing Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro, let alone to effectively carry the big moments in this piece. She finessed her way through it charmingly and did the Sills thing of floating the high/big moments, even making it through the Poison Aria largely intact (actually, that whole scene was an order of magnitude better than I thought it would be, despite the second-dumbest staging in the whole show) and Bertrand de Billy was behind her all the way, reining the orchestra in at big climactic moments, but there were several problems with this approach to the role. Any change in tone as Juliette grows from willful child to married woman throughout the piece was completely lost. In addition, as my friend TE pointed out, Dessay was completely lacking in the chaleur that makes Juliette such a sympathetic character. Without that, and without any perceptible chemistry between her and Vargas' Romeo, it was - oh dear - boring.

Vargas' Roméo should have been significantly better than it was. The role lies perfectly for him. While he still puts out some of the smoothest legato in the business, I fear that his (lately) relatively steady diet of Riccardos and Don Carlos has done some damage - that beautiful tone is starting to harden, his vibrato is starting to beat under pressure instead of throb passionately, and by the last scene he was sharping badly, sometimes as much as a half step. In spite of that horrid purple thing and the rotten staging, he was more involved than I have seen him in anything except Lucia - but still totally lacking in any kind of spark with Dessay (or anyone else). His best moment musically was after the fight scene - but he split the high C at the end wide open, unfortunately.

Unfortunately, both Vargas and Dessay really sounded underpowered (surprisingly so in Vargas' case) in the climactic moments - "Sois béni" made almost no impact, nor was the Poison aria at all the chill-inducing, suspenseful piece it usually is. *sigh*

Stéphane Degout as Mercutio was charming and resonant in a thankless role - I was very sorry to see him go. Would love to see and hear his Papageno sometime.

Kristinn Sigmundsson, despite a few very weird "ah" vowels that were full of air and didn't quite "sound," was an effective Frère Laurent.

Theodora Hanslowe's voice is, frankly, a wreck. Worst Stéphano ever. Basta.

I have completely blocked out the name of the Tybalt. He was that bad. Ugly, squeezed, nasal tone, he lumbered around the stage and was apparently directed to behave as though he were playing Riff in West Side Story. Oy vey.

oh - and even for the Met, the fight choreography blew.

a frustrating evening. ALMOST good. Not good.

Speechless

2005-11-30T00:34:00.000-05:00

Disgusting.

There's just no other word for an editorial entitled "John McCain: Torture Worked on Me."

I am not kidding. I hope he goes down to Newsmax and goes medieval on their asses, and yes, I do recognize the irony in that statement.

Scaring the crap out of myself on a Tuesday

2005-11-29T14:24:00.000-05:00

Wow - go read this piece about Tim LaHaye and the "Left Behinders."

Holy shit, dude.

Scary stuff.

An open letter to Fernando Ferrer

2005-11-29T09:14:00.000-05:00

Warning: New York City-centric, but then I have to keep up my liberal elitist rep somehow.

Dear Mr. Ferrer:

That you lost the NYC mayoral race in 2005 by a margin of 20% - historically large, by the way - does not mean that the fault lies with the pollsters, or with the media (New York Times blah blah, registration blah blah, Bugmenot blah blah blah).

The fault, dear Freddy, lies not with your stars, but with yourself. I hate to be the one to break this to you, but um...you have now behaved like a total dick in the last TWO mayoral campaigns, and as today's above-linked New York Times article re your El Diario interview shows, you are a whiny little bitch as well.

When I, the leftiest of the lefties, cannot find a reason to vote for the Democratic candidate (not even "because he's not the other guy!"), when, in fact, I find myself voting for Bloomberg the GOPpy (RINO, thank goodness) partially because he's a good mayor and partially because he's, well, not YOU, you're in trouble, dude. I haven't forgiven Bloomberg his support of Emperor C+ Augustus, no, nossir, and I mean to make him answer for it somehow, but the fact remains: he is a practical, smart, savvy businessman and is doing his best to do well by this city. You are a self-aggrandizing, pompous little shit, and I wouldn't vote for you for dogcatcher (but hey, don't take it so hard, I didn't vote for you in the primaries either - I was a Gifford Miller girl, all the way).

So quit yer bitchin'. This isn't high school. The dork didn't just lose the race to the quarterback. Get the fuck over it already.

Happy belated Thanksgiving!

2005-11-28T15:47:00.000-05:00

Unbelievable freakin' business has kept me from posting for like a week - I'm sure all six of you were heartbroken.

Anyway, here are some real TURKEYS of recipes!

The Bush Family Cookbook

Grandma Pierce's jello salad thingy will make you want to hide under the couch, I swear.

OH HELL YES! Go DIVAAA.

2005-11-16T20:41:00.000-05:00

Bra-fucking-va!!

"As Minnie, Elizabeth Blancke-Biggs was a veritable powerhouse. Her gorgeous lyrico-spinto soprano gleamed in Puccini's stratospheric flights. Blancke-Biggs' rapturous sound literally enveloped the stage. A flamboyant, charismatic stage presence, the soprano made the poker scene a real musico-dramatic tour de force."

HELL yes. Little by little, bit by bit, the world wakes up to the glory that is...la BIGGS.

...and they love her in Spanish, too.

It's probably an unnecessary comment, but um, this is what I was talking about with that "big voices" thing. Why didn't the NY Times interview Elizabeth Blancke-Biggs, who has, um, a huge voice? A voice that easily encompasses Minnie, Tosca, Norma, Abigaille?

Aw, widdle Teddy won't get his bwidge to nowhere.

2005-11-16T20:10:00.000-05:00

Remember, Senator Stevens, when you said you'd quit if you didn't get the money for your unnecessary and stupid bridges?

We're waiting.

Otters are so cool.

2005-11-16T13:52:00.000-05:00

Smart, too.

Kudos to DE for the linkage.

Congratulations to Jon Stewart and Crew!

2005-11-16T13:41:00.000-05:00

"America, the Book" has just won the 2005 Thurber Prize for outstanding books of humor writing.

Glad to see I'm not the only one who laughed until it hurt...but it hurt so, so good. (ok, ew, yes, that was unnecessary)

But where are all the bbbbiiiiiiiig voices?

2005-11-15T20:11:00.000-05:00

Whine, whine, piss, moan, bitch and complain.

Hey, guess what? If people would hire actual big voices to sing roles, there'd be more big voices around! Instead, we get Amy Johnson as a barely audible Tosca and Natalie Dessay (much as I adore her) as Juliette (at the Met? Is she high? Juliette at least requires a middle voice...), and certain well-meaning - or at least we'll give them the benefit of the doubt - administrators who talk a good game and then hire the prettiest ass that walks into the room, regardless of audibility. You know who you are.

Why didn't they interview, say, Erika Sunnegardh, who has, like, a big voice, instead of Ruth "ruining your voice would make my day" Falcon and Trish "psycho hose beast" McCaffrey, anyone know? I expected more from Midgette, although really I should know better by now.

Wow, is this guy a whack job.

2005-11-08T09:41:00.000-05:00

The mayor of Las Vegas wants to cut the thumbs off people who spray graffiti on freeways?

Overreact much?

Yanno...

2005-11-06T13:39:00.000-05:00

14-0 Chargers, not so much what I wanted to see with 2 minutes to go in the first quarter.

Although Vinny just threw WAY down the field to Chris Baker and we're within 8 yards of a touchdown...oy....please let them score this time...

Oh, and Coles? McCareins? Vinny can't do any better than HIT YOU IN THE HANDS, so anytime you want to start holding on to those passes is ok with me.

updated to add some halftime comments. I'm seeing some bad here, like that it's 21-10 Chargers and we seem utterly unable to hold back LaDanian Tomlinson (but no one else can, either), and a couple of stupid decisions, but I'm seeing some VERY good. The O-line is doing its job for the first time all season, with the result that there have been no fumbled snaps, some key completions, not a single sack, and Martin is starting to be able to run. Vinny's arm is perfectly fine, excellent even, and he's doing some pretty spry dancing around for an old fart, footballistically speaking. The incompletions have not been his fault - McCareins and Coles aren't paying very good attention. Justin Miller is giving us terrific field position every time the special teams is in.

Now the run defense needs to get their shit together and we need to get more pressure on Brees - the one time he got thrown off, he - hello! - threw an interception! Let's see a little more of that.

All in all, hopeful signs for the season, although I'm nowhere near sure that we can take this game back.

Bollinger in at end of the third quarter - you know, I think it's a HUGE mistake to write off Brooksy for not being Tom Brady. The guy can move like crazy - he's already run for one first down - and he hits everything he throws at. What more can we ask? It's not HIS fault the receivers seem to have put butter on their hands before showing up today...

It's also not his fault the defense isn't stopping the Chargers.

...Chris Baker being carted off the field with an ankle injury = not what I wanted to see just now. Or just ever.

Final score Chargers 31, Jets 26. Gad, what a heartbreaker - really did come down to the final minute and a missed call - if the ref had been paying attention, he'd have seen the BLATANT pass interference by that Charger in the end zone...

Bye bye, Kenneth Tomlinson.

2005-11-04T20:31:00.000-05:00

Good. (NY Times, registration possibly required, yadda yadda yadda Bugmenot yadda yadda yadda.

Who the hell is in charge over there?

2005-11-03T17:25:00.000-05:00

I mean, seriously, folks. Make sure you read the second page. This was so offensive and inappropriate that I'm absolutely howling with laughter - it's a joke at this point. I mean, um, who the fuck is working PR???????? HELLO?

Lemme run this by you.

2005-11-03T16:55:00.000-05:00

Remember when Senator Durbin got in dutch with the GOP leadership for calling, I think it was Gitmo - a gulag? Remember how terrible that was, because, well, that was what the Soviet republic did, and we were nothing like them?

Can I just ask a little question here? If we're not like them at all? Not even one little bit?

Why the FUCK ARE WE USING THEIR OLD GULAGS?

The Mines of Sulfur

2005-11-03T15:44:00.000-05:00

Ok, yes, I know, I totally blew off going to Così fan tutte. Bad soprano. I did, however, get to see Mines of Sulfur last night, and was struck by how well NYCO does this kind of thing. Kudos to David Schweizer for directing it simply and effectively, and kudos to Manahan for staying out of the way of the (rather interesting) music.

I'm not really expert enough in theory of modern music to know much about what was going on, musically speaking, but I enjoyed the score, for the most part. It was atonal, but listenable and lyrical, kind of like the music from a suspense movie of the 1950's or 1960's. As EW, my companion, said, it had a few too many climactic moments in the percussion, but also some very lovely and memorable moments, like the duet for soprano and mezzo in the first act and the final scene (something of a tour de force) for the soprano.

The story is pretty creepy - a servant and her boyfriend, plus their helper, murder her icky nasty old fart of a boss so they can steal his money and go to America. While they're waiting for morning so they can leave (his house is way the hell out on the moors), a troupe of actors show up looking for shelter, they turn out to be scary ghosts who go around giving people the black plague. It's tightly told, with very little extraneous crap, although the second act gets a little slow right in the middle (when the soprano is offstage, pretty much).

The set was dark, gloomy, costumes in no particular era, although the actors all seemed to be Elizabethan.

The singers:

Stephen West was loud and blustery - in a good way - as Braxton, the asshole employer, and lyrically menacing as Sherrin, the leader of the players.

Jessie Raven's Rosalind was largely excellent. Her vibrato tends to spread and widen a little bit on "ah" and "uh" vowels, but it cleared up by act 2, and her acting was first-rate. I was scared for her character by the end of the second act.

Mark Duffin's Boconnion - it's hard to know what to make of this, because it seems to be a very vocally punishing role. He acquitted himself nobly, was suitably menacing and moves well onstage, but didn't, to me, make the lasting impression made by...

Caroline Worra, as Jenny. She frankly stole the show. Her voice is round, brilliant and lovely all the way from bottom to (considerably high) top, and she can do ANYTHING with it. The cherry on top: she is electric onstage, and a gorgeous blond, too.

Timothy Nolen, as Tooley, turned in a charming and sinister performance.

The wreck of Myrna Paris' voice, sadly, seems to be complete. If she's not belting, she's mercifully mostly inaudible.

John McVeigh is a smooth performer, and what I could hear of him was fine. I'd have liked a little less "character" sound in the part, but the composer may have written it for character tenor, too.

Adam Green turned in a graceful, spooky acting performance as the mute Trim, who is sort of like Toby from The Medium on a bad acid trip.

All in all, a very enjoyable evening. Wish NYCO did their standard rep this well.

What is it with Republicans and bestiality?

2005-11-01T11:56:00.000-05:00

Yet another nasty, nasty novel by a scary Bushie. This time it's Libby.

Yup, I. Lewis "Indictment Scooter" Libby.

An actual paragraph:

"At age ten the madam put the child in a cage with a bear trained to couple with young girls so the girls would be frigid and not fall in love with their patrons. They fed her through the bars and aroused the bear with a stick when it seemed to lose interest."

What on earth does Libby see in the mirror in the morning that he fantastizes about ten year old girls having sex with bears?

That is some fuckin' nasty shit, right there.

Oh, my god

2005-11-01T11:05:00.000-05:00

Why? Why on earth would anyone do this to the CIA? Isn't the CIA kind of um...important?

The most chilling quote, IMO:

Without a doubt, Goss’ team is the most highly partisan ever to run the CIA. The ex–HPSCI staffers were notorious for taking a Republican Party–oriented stance on many issues, especially Murray, who once tried to get classified information released so it could be used against the Democrats. Under Goss, the CIA public-affairs office has been nearly shut down, under the tight control of Jennifer Millerwise -- not an intelligence person, but a political operative who worked on the Bush-Cheney election campaigns and for Goss at the HPSCI. The partisan, pro-Bush nature of the current regime at the CIA was underlined when Goss issued a widely leaked memorandum telling agency employees to “support the administration and its policies in our work,” adding, “As agency employees we do not identify with, support, or champion opposition to the administration or its policies.”

Obscene.

2005-10-30T12:32:00.000-05:00

It's obscene that we haven't yet received an apology from the president and vice president on this.

This is the kind of hubris that will, I hope, bring the whole damned movement crashing to earth eventually.

Hint to Bush/Cheney: If you guys had gotten up in front of the microphones the day the indictment came out and wholeheartedly and sincerely apologized for the behavior of Libby (and Rove, even though the fucker hasn't been indicted...yet) and expressed shock that someone in your administration would do such a thing, your approval ratings would've shot up. Instead, you'll be remembered as the administration that grimly bulled ahead and never admitted to being wrong...stubborn assholes instead of penitent leaders.

Fine with me, though. Dig your own graves, I won't take your shovels.

I can at least guarantee this.

2005-10-30T10:26:00.000-05:00

The Jets will not lose today.

I am so sure of this, I will bet anyone $1,000 on it.

Anyone know why?

(thoughts on the indictments and more recipes coming soon. No, I didn't get to Così fan tutte yet - week ended up being too crazed. Next week).

My dear, dear friends,

2005-10-27T15:35:00.000-04:00

I love you all so very much. I really, truly value what you bring to my life.

If I get one more fucking Friendster invitation, I am going to print it out, come over to your house and jam it up your ruddy bum. Anal paper cuts ahoy!

You know who you are.

Stop it right now.

Thank you, and good night.

And the down side to this would be...?

2005-10-26T16:07:00.000-04:00

Senator Ted Stevens says that if any of the money for his embarrassing "Bridge to Nowhere" in Alaska is diverted to help those shiftless Katrina victims, he'll resign from the Senate.

um, I actually would have no problem with that.

The only good thing about Monday night's Jets game

2005-10-26T14:40:00.000-04:00

is that the MRI was negative.

Thank heaven for bye weeks, although next up we DO face the San Diego Chargers. *sob*

A SEVERANCE package?

2005-10-26T11:36:00.000-04:00

How about they sock the lying, warmongering bitch in the face, how's THAT for a severance package.

I've been avoiding the Plame game for a few days now.

2005-10-26T09:28:00.000-04:00

In truth, I'm on edge about it, a bit. On the one hand, I want my faith in the system restored - I want to know that there is a limit to what we will let politicians get away with (why can't they just get nice blow jobs from people who aren't their spouses, like normal folk do?), but on the other, I find myself increasingly uncomfortable with the sense of celebration I'm feeling from others who, like me, fall to the left of the political spectrum.

Folks, there is nothing whatsoever to be happy about in this situation. What these people did is shameful, and we should be taking it seriously and demanding accountability and real change, not partying like it's 1999, or something. I'm as susceptible to schadenfreude as the next person, but what I'm seeing is, for lack of a better word, glee and a sort of vindication for all the crap we had to endure during the Clinton years. Yes, they were wrong to do that. We don't want to be wrong now. So let's take this a little bit seriously.

All that said, regardless of what happens, this is a very deep hole to dig out of...ok, fine I'll allow myself just a teeny cackle, here.

The Weirdest Foods

2005-10-26T09:07:00.000-04:00

Fair warning: Do not read this article while eating...well, anything at all.

Fair warning part 2: pictures of crispy deep-fried tarantulas therein. EWWWWWWWWW. EW EW EW EW EW EW.

The Great Cooking Experiment, Chapter 2

2005-10-25T21:21:00.000-04:00

Yeah, I know I just posted chapter 1 like...a minute ago. I'll be all caught up to tonight with this one, though.

We will, if you don't mind too much, skip chapter 1.5, in which our heroine baked pumpkin cranberry muffins, because I didn't sufficiently drain the fresh pumpkin and then I overbaked the muffins because the center wasn't cooking. Oooops. They're still good, though. I'm eating them for breakfast all week.

EM introduced me to this Portuguese bread soup. It looks like it's not going to work. It SOUNDS like it's not going to work...but it tastes really, really good. I wasn't going to do a soup twice in a row, but it's cold, wet and nasty outside...the perfect night for this spicy, garlicky, yummy stuff.

Sopa alentejana

For each serving, put into a large soup plate:

Enough cubes of stale bread to fill the bowl without overflowing. Use a dense, crusty bread. I got a couple of pain ordinaire rolls from the bakery (they are 50 cents each after 5 pm and thank you SD for that tidbit of useful information), cut them into cubes and put them, on a cookie sheet, in a 200 degree oven for 10 minutes.

A "good dousing" (EM's phrase) of a fruity olive oil (one tablespoon or just slightly less is the perfect amount for a large bowl).

2-3 cloves sliced or chopped garlic (please don't use the already chopped stuff, you'll regret it, it'll taste wrong, and as Tony Bourdain says, if you're too lazy to peel and slice/chop your own, you don't deserve to eat garlic).

coarsely chopped cilantro, as much as you like (I used a fair amount, because I like cilantro)

salt to taste

Poach an egg and put it on top of the bread & other ingredients, then add enough boiling water (use the liquid from the poached eggs) to make a thick soup (not so much that the ingredients are swimming around). Add a pinch or two of black pepper, if you like. Then eat it.

Yes, seriously.

The results:

The Joy of Cooking, while absolutely fabulous in most respects, lies about how long to poach an egg. If you poach an egg for 5-8 minutes, you end up with a little concrete egg. Where's Mickey when you need him? I could have pegged the little shit right between the eyes with my first poaching attempt.

So I used my phone-a-friend option, or, in this case, a mom! She talked me through the process and I had beginner's luck - I poached two eggs, cooking them about 90 seconds, and both came out just right - cooked through, but with a runny hot yolk, and the whites even came back together nicely, considering how old I think these eggs are.

This is probably the easiest recipe I'll ever get to make and it's so good. I finished up with one - ok, two - petit ecolier cookies (I sense a trend here).

Next will be meat of some kind, I promise.

The Great Cooking Experiment, Chapter 1

2005-10-25T21:16:00.000-04:00

Chapter two is following swiftly on the heels of chapter 1, as the first installment is actually from Friday.

The background: Our hero and master chef has gone off to the wilds of Elsewhere in America (there are OTHER places in this country???) to slay dragons with his high notes. Left to her own devices, our heroine quickly realizes that ordering out every night will not only expand her waistline, but reduce her cash flow, and one can only eat baked potatoes for so long without getting bored. She has no other alternative but to do what she has successfully resisted for an obscene number of years. She must...learn...to...cook.

Chapter 1: Spiced pumpkin and split pea soup

This recipe comes from Self magazine, and is low in calories and fat in addition to being chock full of vitamin A and fiber. I picked it out because it looked a) good and b) easy.

The recipe:

1/4 tsp saffron threads
10 cups (2 1/2 quarts) chicken broth
1 1/4 cups dried yellow split peas
1 large onion, chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger
6 cups peeled, seeded and cubed pumpkin (from a 3- to 4-pound pumpkin) Minced fresh parsley

In a large metal spoon or a small pan, heat saffron over low heat about 10 seconds until dry, then grind to a powder with the back of a spoon and steep in 1 tbsp boiling water to release flavor, about 1 minute. Bring broth, peas, and onion to a boil in a large soup pot over high heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer, partially covered, 30 to 40 minutes. Stir in oil, cinnamon, ginger, spoonful of saffron, and pumpkin. Bring to a boil, then reduce to low and simmer, partially covered, stirring occasionally, about 1 hour. The soup is done when the pumpkin begins to fall apart and the peas are tender. Salt and pepper and sprinkle with parsley.

The results:

Mickey, the little bastard, has been pooping on my stove. For those unfamiliar with the situation, Mickey is a little shit of a cute fuzzy brown mouse who has somehow gotten into the apartment. Mickey shoves aside traps with his nose, contemptuously. He is also extremely fond of Ghirardelli chocolate chips, but you don't want to know how I know that. So step 1 was to clean the range...with probably too much bleach.

Pumpkins are a pain in the ass to seed and peel, but they're worth it, and I still had 1/2 of a wrapped pumpkin in my fridge (the smallest one at the green market was 7 pounds! It was only $3, though) with which to make bread, pies and anything legal my loyal readers, all six of you (we're up to six?) might suggest.

Contrary to what the recipe says, the pumpkin never did start to fall apart. It softened and cooked, but was still in cubes. I put it through the food mill, leaving a couple of chunks, which gave the soup a nice texture.

1 tsp of cinnamon smells like way too much while the soup is cooking, but there was only a hint of it in the end product. One can be quite generous with the salt and pepper, too.

I grated a little parmesan and chopped some parsley to throw on top and ate two bowls of it, with gruyère cheese bread from the bakery. I was going to bake cheese biscuits (recipe courtesy of Jesque & the lovely Ltlbtrfly!), but had opera tickets (this was the Tosca night) and was running out of time. Followed up with 2 petit écolier cookies for dessert (hey! They were on sale!).

Verdict: definitely will make again, this is really good, pretty easy and there was enough left to last me three days, and as an added bonus it cooks long enough that I was able to clean the apartment while it was on the stove.

The 25 most shocking moments in film history

2005-10-25T15:06:00.000-04:00

Awesome! They included the "such a tush, I could bite it" moment from "Where's Poppa?"

...and OMG, they included my personal most shocking movie moment - the bit with the sack from "Audition" (if you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about). I was alone in the house late at night, like an idiot, and I jumped off the couch and screamed like a schoolgirl on a bad acid trip. What a fucking creepfest that movie was.

Warning: mega-annoying popups (although not if you have the sense to use Safari as your browser).

We all knew this was coming.

2005-10-25T15:02:00.000-04:00

Let the swiftboating begin!

>"He's a vile, detestable, moralistic person with no heart and no conscience who believes he's been tapped by God to do very important things," one White House ally said, referring to special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald.<

Funny, that sounds an awful lot like the guy was describing the president to me...

Soprano and baritone mostly overcome intensely stupid direction

2005-10-24T15:46:00.000-04:00

First, yes, I know, I haven't posted since Thursday. I've been cranky, bitchy (yes, bitchiER, fine), and way too busy. So sue me.

There, that's out of the way. Now, on to Tosca at NYCO, which I saw courtesy of a nice person on Friday night.

The production remains a decent idea incredibly poorly executed. The direction is another matter - Beth Greenberg seems to have decided that hysterical and frequently pointless motion at all cost was the order of the day, and the opera became all about who could scamper faster and who could make the most nonsensical gesture. For example: Act 3 started out with three - or was it four? - metal buckets sitting onstage. Every once in a while, a soldier would wander on, pick up ONE bucket, and wander off. WTF is that about? Who cares about the fucking buckets? Did someone make a huge donation and then say "give my kid something to do in Tosca?" Or what? Unfortunate, too, because some good stuff was happening onstage.

John DeMain's tempi were sometimes perfectly fine, if uninspired, but all too frequently far too slow (the torture scene, for example, lost all its tension due to the molasses-like tempo, and it's awfully hard to sing a love duet when the singers are struggling to get through the line so they can BREATHE).

Matthew Burns, as Angelotti, was the evening's first pleasant surprise. His voice is huge, warm and supple. Unfortunately, he was apparently directed to run around the stage like a muppet on speed, which distracted somewhat from his lovely singing.

The less said about Michael Wanko's Sacristan and Christopher Jackson's Spoletta, the better, although the single nice directorial touch of the evening was to have the Sacristan's body dragged offstage during act 3.

Carla Thelen Hanson, as Tosca, looked stunning and sang like a diva. Her voice is dark, warm, rich and beautiful, with volume to spare, and the requisite steel to carry the role. The director should have realized, however, that when one has a soprano who looks like a 1940's silver screen goddess instead of a barbie doll (which is to say, a real woman with a real body, as opposed to a stick figure with fake tits), one can take advantage of that and let her STAND STILL every once in a while, instead of making her dart here and there like Tinkerbell the Wonder Fairy, which served neither her nor the character very well. The second act costume looked far better than it does on NYCO's normal size 0 (body AND voice) in the role, but note to costume designer: Tosca, the character, DOESN'T HAVE TIME TO CHANGE between acts 2 and 3, you nitwit. What, she runs home really quickly to put on all new clothes? All in all, Hanson acquitted herself nobly, which is more than I can say of...

Jorge Antonio Pita, as Cavaradossi. What the hell happened? I remember this guy three years ago as a promising voice, kinda like a baby Domingo, but with high notes, and now he's barely audible, is throwing his head back inexplicably to roar anything above an F and instead sounding like he's blowing the tone through a wind tunnel, and what you can hear is grainy and has lost all its beauty. That's the most tepid reaction I have EVER heard from an audience after "E lucevan le stelle" (in fact, my friend and I had to start the applause), which wasn't really fair, because for that number in particular he mustered up the energy to do a subtle, elegant (er, not beautiful, but better than the rest of his singing) job. Unfortunately, er, he was also upstaged by the soldier standing directly above him on the second level, back to the audience, looking for all the world as though he were taking the world's longest piss off the balcony. Also, Pita either can't move onstage or was directed to just stand there facing out and never, under any circumstances, react to what anyone said to him. Could you at least fix his costume, please? He's a gorgeous, compact, muscular man, and that rag makes him look lumpy and 30 pounds heavier than he is.

Thank heavens for Todd Thomas, as Scarpia. He came striding onstage like he owned the place, and he might as well have. His voice is big and gorgeous, even from top to bottom, and is he ever a sexy muthafucka. By the time he was done practically bending Tosca over the desk in act 2, I needed a cigarette. I'd have thrown my panties at him if I'd been closer to the stage. He seems to have either escaped or ignored the stupid stage direction, too - everything he did was in character, sensible and convincing. Sorry, I'd have said "Scarpia, baby...lend me your gun, I'll shoot the tenor right now if you just promise you'll wear the jackboots while we do it." I'm having to fan myself just thinking about it.

So, a mixed bag. Worth the price of admission for Hanson and Thomas, IMHO, just close your eyes and FEEL the sparkage between them in Act 2.

Next up: Così fan tutte, tomorrow night. Stay tuned!

Wow.

2005-10-20T11:11:00.000-04:00

This guy is pissed.

Who can blame him?

We'll always have Santorum

2005-10-20T10:57:00.000-04:00

Poor baby. The White House won't even return his calls! look at that little pout...

jaw drops

2005-10-19T12:12:00.000-04:00

There is so much wrong with this that I don't even know where to begin.

Unintentionally ironic quote of the day, from the above-linked story:

"Bush did not feel misled so much by Karl and others as believing that they handled it in a ham-handed and bush-league way," the source said.

Yes, I'd call that "bush-league," all right.

Up = Down

2005-10-18T10:00:00.000-04:00

Black = White

It's pouring rain on a sunny day.

Apparently, singing with "rough-edged" tone and occasionally "quiver(ing) below pitch" is the new exciting, not to mention it no longer matters whether or not a singer has the stamina to make it to the end of the night. Oh yeah, and while I'm at it, people, lyric sopranos aren't supposed to sound "rough-edged." They're supposed to sound creamy and beautiful and sing legato.

And while we're at it, since when does a "slight sense of strain" when a singer sings piano indicate "attractive vulnerability." Sorry, what it indicates is POOR TECHNIQUE, people. Audible strain in the voice is not a good thing!

But hey, I give up, who the hell cares about good singing anyway?

Cheered me right on up

2005-10-18T09:13:00.000-04:00

Now this is what I call a birthday present.

Even if it is from the NY Daily toilet paper.

If any of this turns out to be remotely true, no, I won't feel at all sorry for these dickwads. They were willing to wreck my country so they could make money and have their tinpot war.

Fuck them.

Judith Miller and the New York Times

2005-10-16T20:27:00.000-04:00

If I haven't said anything about this article, which purports to address the whole Judith Miller debacle, and this cunty, self-serving piece of shit - oops, I mean "article," which is BY Judith Miller and purports to address her grand jury testimony, it's not because I don't have strong opinions on the situation (moi?).

It's because I find it simply incredible that - after the Jayson Blair situation, mind you - Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. and Bill Keller allowed themselves to be drawn into such a dysfunctional circumstance, the outcome of which may be that one renegade asshole reporter has quite possibly forever destroyed the credibility of what used to be an exceptionally good newspaper; indeed, one of only four or five worth reading in the entire country, in my opinion (the others being the Wall Street Journal, which articles I read by the light of its burning op-ed pages, the Boston Globe, the Washington Post, the Toledo Blade, and occasionally the LA Times and the Detroit Free Press).

The whole situation is sick. I especially love the line in the first linked article where Miller admits to being "wrong" - as opposed to "lying" - about WMD in Iraq and then proceeds to blame it on her sources. Meanwhile, Mohamed El-Baradei's team wins the Nobel Prize for, among other things, being right, so SOMEONE knew there was nothing there, you insane cow.

In my humble opinion, Miller and Keller should be summarily fired, and Sulzberger should immediately resign. I also believe that if ever there were a case to be made for bringing back the time-honored tradition of public shaming, this is it. Judith Miller abdicated the integrity of her profession in her hunt for the story that would make her famous, with far-reaching consequences. She should henceforth be shunned by decent people.

Poor Katie Holmes

2005-10-16T20:03:00.000-04:00

Someday, when she grows up a little, she's going to look back on this time in her life and just cringe.

Furthermore, if I were going to have a baby and some asshat man told me I not only couldn't have drugs during labor but I had to be totally silent, I'd say "ok, honey...no problem...tell you what, so you can share the experience with me more fully, I'm going to jam a watermelon waaaay up your ass and watch you try to shit it out...in total silence. Shhh! Don't speak!"

With this crap, Tom Cruise has finally crossed the line from just nutjob into moronic fuckwad nutjob, I'm afraid, but hey, I've know he was a freak show forever. What kind of an idiot lets Nicole Kidman go in the first place??

Inexcusable

2005-10-16T19:19:00.000-04:00

Allowing your qb to be sacked five times - three of them before halftime - is just inexcusable.

Period.

I hope some serious kicks in the penis to the O-line are administered by the Jets' offensive coordinator this week.

Jets should've won this game...an awful lot of unnecessary mistakes made.

Oh well, at least the Pats are still getting their asses handed to them by Denver. There had to be one bright spot in my day.

This guy obviously hasn't been properly laid in years

2005-10-15T19:27:00.000-04:00

and with an attitude like this, he's not going to be, either. On the other hand, I haven't laughed this hard in a few days.

Amanda at Pandagon, curse you, curse you for forcing me to link to the Whackjob Net Daily.

You know what would make my Sunday?

2005-10-15T13:18:00.000-04:00

If Cedric Houston made a couple of really big plays.

That would make my day.

Oh yeah, that, and the Jets beating the Bills. They're certainly looking revitalized, and it's nice to know that the Bills' defense CANNOT discount Vinny's arm like they could Chad's (no offense, Chad. I love you dearly, but a cannon on the arm you don't so much have).

Your lesson for today:

2005-10-14T16:31:00.000-04:00

DON'T fuck with the librarian!

What kind of a fucking idiot is Jeanine Pirro anyway?

2005-10-14T16:13:00.000-04:00

I mean, get this.

Mob money, a crook for a husband and lying about endorsements?

What a maroon. Is this seriously the best the GOP can muster to oppose la Hil? Good luck with that, fellas...

Best. Obit. Ever.

2005-10-14T10:29:00.000-04:00

This even tops the one from Sally Baron, who wanted contributions to be made in her name to "any organization working for the removal of President Bush."

"Theodore Roosevelt Heller, 88, loving father of Charles (Joann) Heller; dear brother of the late Sonya (the late Jack) Steinberg. Ted was discharged from the U.S. Army during WWII due to service-related injuries, and then forced his way back into the Illinois National Guard insisting no one tells him when to serve his country. Graveside services Tuesday 11 a.m. at Waldheim Jewish Cemetery (Ziditshover section), 1700 S. Harlem Ave., Chicago. In lieu of flowers, please send acerbic letters to Republicans."

I would have liked this man.

Why unlimited Executive power is a Very Bad Thing

2005-10-14T09:20:00.000-04:00

This is a piece about a case now before the Supreme Court, Hamdan v. Bush, about the legality of military tribunals in the so-called "war on terrah." The article is written by David Remes of Covington and Burling, Counsel of Record in the the case.

This is an amicus curiae brief submitted by a group of retired officers in the case, asking the SCOTUS to suspend the tribunals.

Please take the time to read both, they are well worth it.

Of all the horrifying things this administration has done in the name of the citizens of the United States of America, in my opinion the suspension of the Geneva Conventions is right up there with the worst. That's the kind of thing that comes from the idea that "we" are better than "they" are, which scares me half to death.

This also exemplifies one of the multitude of reasons Harriet Miers should never be confirmed to the SCOTUS. She is a blind loyalist, dedicated to unlimited power for the Executive branch. Do we really want these people to be able to decide, without consequences, who is and who isn't worthy of being treated humanely? Good lord.

Oh dear, there goes the last vestige of my gullibility

2005-10-13T20:09:00.000-04:00

Al-Qaeda says the letter "found" by US officials in Iraq is fake.

Considering they have NO compunction about saying "hell yeah, that's our stuff!" when they blow something up...er...

This is interesting.

2005-10-13T16:39:00.000-04:00

Keith Olbermann examines some coincidental timing.

dissolving into giggles again

2005-10-13T16:29:00.000-04:00

hee.

hee hee.

hee hee hee.

Subpoena time!

blink

2005-10-13T11:40:00.000-04:00

Do you suppose Preznit Awol W. Chickenhawk recognizes the supreme irony in this quote (from this speech)?

"Bin Laden says his own role is to tell Muslims, quote, "what is good for them and what is not." And what this man who grew up in wealth and privilege considers good for poor Muslims is that they become killers and suicide bombers. He assures them that his -- that this is the road to paradise -- though he never offers to go along for the ride."

Dumbassery ahoy!

This goddamned thing is addictive

2005-10-13T11:08:00.000-04:00

I could spend all day on The Advertising Slogan Generator.

Get the door - it's bella figlia dell'amore!

Daddy or bella figlia dell'amore?

Run for the bella figlia dell'amore!

2005-10-13T10:20:00.000-04:00

Grazie, Felicità, for the laugh!

Oh MY.

2005-10-12T11:05:00.000-04:00

Oh ME oh MY

Focus of CIA Leak Probe
Appears to Widen

By JOHN D. MCKINNON, JOE HAGAN and ANNE MARIE SQUEO
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
October 12, 2005; Page A3

The New York Times reporter who went to jail to avoid testifying in the CIA leak case was quizzed by the special prosecutor again yesterday and has agreed to return to the grand jury today.

Judith Miller's additional testimony comes as the endgame is intensifying in the legal chess match that threatens to damage the Bush administration.

There are signs that prosecutors now are looking into contacts between administration officials and journalists that took place much earlier than previously thought. Earlier conversations are potentially significant, because that suggests the special prosecutor leading the investigation is exploring whether there was an effort within the administration at an early stage to develop and disseminate confidential information to the press that could undercut former Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife, Central Intelligence Agency official Valerie Plame.

...I want this for Christmas.

2005-10-11T20:48:00.000-04:00

Don't you?

Hat tip to Jesque!

They've been working vewy, vewy hard.

2005-10-11T11:25:00.000-04:00

Therefore it's ok to beat the shit out of a drunk guy...provided he's black, that is.

Appalling. Just appalling.

Did I mention the guy they beat up is 64?

In spite of the fucking STUPID first sentence,

2005-10-11T11:07:00.000-04:00

this is a fairly good article about what Dean is trying to do with the DNC. I was right all along, he'd have been a terrific president, I told you all so, so there.

A high point or two:

Among Dean's goals are:

--Making Democrats the party of values, community and reform. Armed with extensive DNC polling, Dean is consulting with party leaders in Congress, mayors and governors to recast the public's image of Democrats with a unified message.

--Improving the party's ''micro-targeting,'' the tactic of merging political information about voters with their consumer habits to figure out how to appeal to them.

--Building a 50-state grass-roots organization, using the same Internet and community-building tools that took Dean's presidential bid from obscurity to the front of the pack before Iowa.

Gee, gosh and golly, remember all the bitching about how Democrats don't have a message?

Voilà. I got yer message right here.

Martern Faller Aparten

Un po' di pazzia

Speaking of dead people

Bloggy day of mourning

The kind of thing that makes me want to stay over here

Hey Johnny boy!

While I´m thinking of it,

Slow posting for a while longer

BRAVA DIVA!

The Met's Traviata: A hunka hunka burnin' tenor

Just a random thought on the state of the art

I am strangely excited

er...be mine?

This is funny.

You want to know why I'm so angry?

John McCain gets up on the wrong side of bed...again

Every year, I await this with bated breath.

Il Vecchio speaks

Holy shit, dude.

Happy birthday, Mozart!

Depending on the cast,

If you voted Republican in the last election,

Awesome.

HA HA HA HA HA

After reading about eight different accounts of it,

AWWWWWWWWWWW

Arlen Specter: Dumb as a Box of Hair

Bloggy day of mourning

Shit, meet fan.

Stupidity Ahoy!

If you've just joined us,

Met Rigoletto, Tuesday, December 13

Big shocker: Bush fucks over McCain...again.

What the fuck?!?

and a Happy New Year to us all

Yes, yes, I know.

I would've blogged the Preznit's speechifying,

One of those "who the hell did she blow" moments

A Titanic-themed holiday party?

THE JETS FINALLY WIN ONE!

Big Dawg nails Bush's nads to wall

An Interminable - I mean American - Tragedy at the Met

I...um...well.

Bill O'Reilly still batshit crazy

Go shorty, it's your bat mitzvah

How many years will it take

Roméo et Juliette at the Met

Speechless

Scaring the crap out of myself on a Tuesday

An open letter to Fernando Ferrer

Happy belated Thanksgiving!

OH HELL YES! Go DIVAAA.

Aw, widdle Teddy won't get his bwidge to nowhere.

Otters are so cool.

Congratulations to Jon Stewart and Crew!

But where are all the bbbbiiiiiiiig voices?

Wow, is this guy a whack job.

Yanno...

Bye bye, Kenneth Tomlinson.

Who the hell is in charge over there?

Lemme run this by you.

The Mines of Sulfur

What is it with Republicans and bestiality?

Oh, my god

Obscene.

I can at least guarantee this.

My dear, dear friends,

And the down side to this would be...?

The only good thing about Monday night's Jets game

A SEVERANCE package?

I've been avoiding the Plame game for a few days now.

The Weirdest Foods

The Great Cooking Experiment, Chapter 2

The Great Cooking Experiment, Chapter 1

The 25 most shocking moments in film history

We all knew this was coming.

Soprano and baritone mostly overcome intensely stupid direction

Wow.

We'll always have Santorum

*jaw drops*

jaw drops

dissolving into giggles again

blink