Bloglet, the gentleman's mock turtle soup --
Moss made it sweeter than myrrh ash and dhoup

Nero, in Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione di Poppea, is supposed to be sung by a castrato, and not a tenor. I didn't know this (though I thought it was odd that my recording had a tenor; most heroic roles in baroque opera are for castrati), but it excites me. My old scratchy version was recorded live in the 60's; I bought it because it was cheap and because it has Boris Christoff (though my dad said he sounded sort of "doddering"... I'll have to find recordings of him in his prime to understand why my dad loves him so much), but I didn't think it would be so grossly inauthentic as to change the freaking fach of the main character. I mean, I know they do it in Idomeneo all the time (and it makes me so maaaaad!), but at least that was at a time when the heroic tenor was starting to hold his own (god help us) against the castrati. Man. It's such a delightfully vile opera -- I dunno if any of you guys read Brittanicus in Junior French, but it's that sort of Nero. Charming, lovable, murderous... and the music is trippy, especially this one scene near Seneca's forced suicide, I think (I don't have the libretto, so I have to go off the synopsis). It's got this stifling, rising line repeated many times over by the strings and the chorus... I dunno if it's foreshadowing the burning of Rome or the feeling you get when an evil force is taking over the country you've served all your life, or what. Y'know, since the opera ends with a wedding, it really should be considered a comedy. Har! I think someone called it "the most amoral opera in the repertoire". Cheers. _ respond? 06:20:46 AM, Sunday 8 September 2002

The Theory of Geek Convergence: All geeks, despite (and often because of) vicious and derisive power struggles amid their ranks, will eventually coalesce into a single Geek-Unit composed of antithetically opposed fandoms, becoming catastrophically vulnerable to geek haters by virtue of their staggering dorkitude and, at the same time, fearsome and all-powerful, having combined the straggling forces of a thousand million passionate obsessions. First evidence: Marching Band Fan Fiction. There is absolutely no reason why anyone should write MARCHING BAND FAN FICTION! The very concept makes simply no sense. But, soft -- what's this? Harry Potter, Star Trek, and Tolkien Marching Band Fan Fiction? Critical mass, my comrades. Our day is fast approaching. _ respond?