KITTY's new interior designer (ANDREW’s screenprint Valentine's card)
Mark Morris Dido and Aeneas Week with talks, the film, classes (Feb 8-14).
There's playing the piano. There's interpreting the keyboard. Then there's angels dancing on the head of a pin.
Dear Horton, what dreams may come…
Morgan Library & Museum’s Instagram page reveals the fascinating story behind Beethoven’s 'Kreutzer' Violin Sonata Op. 47. The irony that Kreutzer never even played the piece! Or indeed was that interested in Beethoven! And that it should really be called the Bridgetower Sonata.
https://twitter.com/Number10cat
Recommended this Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt childrens’ play Zoom lecture last month, well it’s so great and it’s streaming now. Don’t know whether it’ll be available post stream.
在我们视野所及中，人类存在的唯一目的，是在黑暗中燃起一束光亮。
The Vixen's Tale [TBD...]
The Cab Driver's Tale [TBD..]
There's a really great production from the Wiener Staatsoper of Mozart's last opera La Clemenza di Tito from 2016. Director Jürgen Flimm one of the household names of opera and theater production in Germany. Yet relatively unknown outside Europe. A 2000 production at The Met of Fidelio didn't go down so well (didn't see it, can't comment). However, Jürgen Flimm was to Hamburg's Thalia Theater what Bob Falls is to the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. So, listen up. He and Peter Stein are still with us. So Jürgen, we never met. Still time:) Did I say that this production makes Clemenza sexy! Shoulds be. Irony that that is what surrounds Tito. Vitellia in love with herself really resulting in chaos, everyone else struggling to maintain their significant others. Mezzo-soprano Margarita Gritskova's Sesto (originated in 2012 by Elina Garanča) outstanding in those difficult arias. Tito’s clemency being so modern. So far removed from boring conventional… So, unbelievable.….(You have a chance to decide for yourself when they repeat Tuesday 16th at 1pm EST)
Herr Stein we did many many decades ago. You somewhat suspicious of me, a relative no-one/someone leaving a note at the Berlin stage door asking timidly (or was that brazenly;) for an interview. Me, flabbergasted that you agreed. (A Sunday seem to remember from nowhere) Me, now only understanding how naive I was. How stupid my questions might have been to you. Only wishing that we could do that again now. Decades later, me still somewhat stupid:) All that water not under the bridge but forever lapping at both our heels. The past so not another country.
In the next few hours at this time last year 2020 in London on the eve of Valentine's Day, TV presenter and performer Caroline Flack suicided. A woman (a girl at heart) who radiated nothing but joy to millions of viewers. Hung by a British tabloid press hand in glove with a criminal justice system and the police all sorely in need of investigation. (Doesn't sound like America, does it? Here one can commit gross fraud, almost bankrupt a poor freelance photographer, be released from prison a year later and thence be the spotlight of not one but two TV shows. Only in Amerika folks! Only in America.) Who says crime doesn't pay for everyone. Yeah! Democracy.
A reminder of Caroline Flack's joy, enthusiasm and that rare gift of communication to millions. Not to mention Strictly Come Dancing.
[As a postscript : if I do opine about something/someone I do enormous research. That's true everyone above, below, sidewards, the 6th dimension. So before anyone 'has a go at me' research the facts behind what is mentioned. What can be ascertained. In the case of fraudster Anna Sorokin, I have no empathy nor sympathy. And yet. I hope one or both TV adaptions of that story really get to grips with the fact that her crimes are a part of their medium. Their world. People criticized the real life guy (John Wojtowicz) whose story Dog Day Afternoon became a film sensation, for posing for photos/selfies/autographs after prison release outside the bank where he held folks hostage. All to get money for his partner's transgender sex change. Isn't their criticism somewhat biased!? How much money did Al Pacino make? Warner Brothers?
If there is empathy for 'Anna Sorokin' it's that 'she/he/it/them' are on almost every street corner in New York. Ever bar. Every reception. Every Gala. They just don't have her balls to succeed. Thankfully! Yet everyone is complicit in the 'show'. To say the 'scam' would be libelous. I don't agree, as her lawyers keep arguing, that what she did wasn't 'criminal'. A technical term. You try a technical term with someone who has their trust forever scared, perhaps losing their job, apartment etc etc. But the 'show' must go on. Or….]
And for all those attorneys seeking LOVE? Well most of you won't find it on my Brilliant Adventures web-site. And those who will, know who you are. Some may find the film Marriage Story a bit tedious. That seems what it strives for, strangely. There is nothing fun nor broad-minded in breaking up with someone you love let alone married (plus beloved child) and then coerced into legalities of divorce. It's the little things you do together…
And, again, maybe this film doesn't play so well overseas. Have no idea of their legalities. Moral is (apart from communicate with honestly in the first place, "hmmmm"): don't get married in California, don't have a child there. Otherwise if things go sour…well [spoiler alert] this film does have somewhat of a happy ending. As seems apparent, did Anna Sorokin's in New York! I don't need to put ideas into folks' heads, as John Cleese well knows. It's in the water. In the DNA.
Thanks for the glass of water. I'd rather...
Then again, if His Royal Highness and Her Royal Highness Harry and Meghan, had their next child born in California, then she/he/ it/ them could conceivably be a President of the United States! Now that would be an 1812 overture.
ANDREW and KITTY are leaving on an extended 'holiday of the mind and imagination'. Who knows when we will return. Who knows what we will find. (Before we go, we've drawn a little Valentine for Caroline in your imagination and for all those who didn’t quite make it through the heartbreak) . KITTY has decided that Twitter chat non grata isn't for her but wishes Larry the Cat more 'fresh salmon of the mind' rather than tinned 'whiskers of democracy'. ANDREW decided long ago never to walk in the shadow of 'real life's misnomer.
We hope your mind has been opened just a little by our website and our suggestions. So many great things we didn't get to mention. Salman Toor (sounds fishy;). Scandinavia House etcatera. We hope you watch some opera. We both feel, though, it is better to leave while we're in love rather than face the stale smell of camellias and "Streets that follow like a tedious argument. Of insidious intent." Maybe you will see us on a screen near you. Someday maybe, puttin' on the Ritz.
c*t
Strauss, Richard, 1864-1949. Lieder, op. 27. Morgen; arr. Morgen : autograph manuscript, 1897 Sept. 20.
https://www.themorgan.org/music/manuscript/115746
