On the way to Arizona I picked up a copy of Smithsonian. There is an article on the woman pharoah Hatshepsut. There is also a review of a new biography of Lorenzo da Ponte called The Libretist of Venice. I'll have to look it over.
My travelling list this time includes only Helen Mirren's Elizabeth I and Anna's La Traviata.
I just blog for fun. I wanted to see if it was possible to write about classical music without being so pompous assed about it. I think opera is the supreme entertainment medium, that if you aren't into opera, you are simply missing out on the peak experience. Now that there are surtitles, it's all a piece of cake. I sometimes wonder, though, if the surtitles don't take away some of the mystique of opera.
I am only about half way through Divas and Scholars. I love reading this, but then I like to read books about string theory and black holes. It can't get too nerdy for me.
Everything I write isn't brilliant. I sometimes wish people would argue with me, but I haven't acquired enough significance for that. I write about my gut feelings. In my own behalf I would like to say that my gut feelings are generally right on. In my own humble opinion. I write first and check the facts later. My spelling is not good, but I don't completely miss very often. Biggest miss? Cappuccino. I don't actually know anything about this.
This is a blog and not journalism.
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2 comments:
But that doesn't mean blogging CAN'T be journalism, right? You're correct that most folks who write about opera (especially in periodicals) can be overly pompous, especially when employing "insider jargon" to show how much they know about their topic. One of the reasons I read all your posts is that, despite your obvious scholarship, you write in an entertaining manner and without assuming your audience is filled with elitists. Thanks for blogging.
I was briefly involved in journalism and was told to drop the first person singular from all my writing. It still stings a bit. It's always just that person's opinion and doesn't carry the weight of the world, even when the critic is writing for the New York Times.
There's nothing wrong with journalism--I'm just not doing it.
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