ticket to chide

Last week I had the opportunity to go see the American premiere of Ferneyhough's opera "Shadowtime" (thanks, Conrad). I'm not really going to talk about my impressions of the opera specifically because they're less than useful (except for this one - Mr. F, stop reading heady books and writing heady music and go outside and play for once!). That said, we're all entitled to our opinions...which sometimes makes opinions useless. But to expedite the discussion I will at least say that I mostly agree with Anthony Tommasini's assessment from the NY Times.


photo from Scene V (Walter Benjamin and border guard), Munich premiere, by Regine Koerner © 2004

Maybe you can get a sense of what frustrated Tommasini by reading the synopsis -- should I say "thought summary" -- ugh.

On a side note, I feel bad that I keep referencing the Times. I agree with the free katie and open media advocate Kenyatta that blogs should be a space free from the talons of mainstream media -- so my guilt is duly noted and we all move on.

so to come...
a rethinking of "Who Cares If You Listen?" entitled "I want SOMEONE to listen...just so long as they're not all white, old, and rich"

In the meantime, Sheila and I have been vacillating about the name of our band that's trying so valiently to leave the vacuity of "wouldn't it be cool if" and materialize into "we're so kick-ass and we can prove it." Here's the latest (and possibly final) manifestation: IBU (International Bitterness Unit) --

UPDATE: just after typing that last sentence I did a search...DAMMIT! Now we're back to our 2nd choice: FUK Y'ALL IF Y'ALL THINK WE NEED A NAME TO MAKE IT "CONVENIENT" TO REMEMBER US AND THEREBY MAKE IT POSSIBLE TO MARKET AND ULTIMATELY RAPE US.

Too death metal?