Readers' Choice Challenge #1: Bonkers, Brilliant, Rubbish

To the Lighthouse was all three. (Why those terms? More on my latest obsession below.)

Beloved readers, I think you may be a bit bonkers for loving this one so much. Yes, there are moments when the language is absolutely brilliant, but getting there, oh my god, such a chore. I did love the “Time Passes” interlude where I thought the poetic language really fit the image of an abandoned summer house; however, for a whole novel, language isn’t enough for me, I really need either character or plot. Yes, I know, I’m demanding that way.

Also, isn’t Virginia Woolf supposed to be feminist? I wanted to slap all these women and tell them to get over it already. I realize I’m reading this work from a privileged twenty-first-century position, but really, I sympathized with no one here (except maybe James, who had to wait ten frakking years to get to the lighthouse already).

“It was done; it was finished. Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigue, I have had my vision.”

Yup, that last line pretty much sums it up. Thanks, Virginia.

Honestly, I would have abandoned this one on the rubbish heap if it hadn’t been part of this year’s challenge. So, I guess I thank you for picking it since I do think I needed to try Woolf at least one more time after my disastrous encounter in high school. I guess we can definitely say that modernists and me are unmixy things. Next up, Lolita! That should go very well. (I kid. I already read the first few pages and think it will go just fine.)

Speaking of which, the Goodreads voters have spoken and there are a number of you who would like to start a longer-term read of Middlemarch in February (easily beating out War and Peace, so that will be deferred until the second half of the year). Second place in the voting went to “Are you kidding?! I’m not even attempting those.” Slackers.*

If you are a new or lapsed reader and wondering what the heck I’m talking about, you can see recent posts about this year’s challenge and our Goodreads group here.

Finally, in other reading news, I have discovered a new books podcast out of the U.K. that I absolutely love: The Readers. This weekly podcast is basically two guys with fairly divergent tastes nattering about books and book news, with various guest appearances by authors and other bloggers. It is incredibly funny and informative and I highly recommend it. I must admit, I have a bit of a podcast crush on both of them and am suddenly finding my conversation littered with various exclamations including “bonkers,” “brilliant,” and “rubbish.” Between his love of Rebecca and his hatred of the Kindle, I have a slight preference for Simon (sorry, Gav!), but I’m sure you will find things to love about both of them and the topics they discuss. There have been 17 episodes since early October and all are available on iTunes. As a completist, I naturally think you must start with episode one and listen to them all, but if you must cherry-pick, try episode seven if you like Sherlock Holmes, episode eight if you like Ann and Michael of Books on the Nightstand (which, as you may remember, I already recommended way back when), or episode 13, the Boxing Day year-in-review special. Seriously, check them out.

Note: For future reference, I can’t see who voted for what, but I’ll try to make at least general results visible to everybody for next time, I just couldn’t go back and edit the poll once it started.

How to Drink

As many of you know, I am always on the lookout for good cocktails, or, failing that, good books about making them. I posted last fall about Dale DeGroff’s The Essential Cocktail, which has served me well and should be on the shelf of everyone who is serious about their personal bar. Right alongside should be Victoria Moore’s How to Drink.

I learned about this fabulous tome on Rowley’s Whiskey Forge—a blog for anyone who loves cooking, eating, and drinking (not necessarily in that order), or even just reading about said activities. I can’t do justice to his beautifully written review of this book, so I’ll just link to it here. Suffice it to say, How to Drink is extremely readable, while also providing plenty of recipes and essential information about brewing coffee and tea, choosing wine, and stocking your bar. Moore even has a section on making your own elderflower cordial!

After covering the basics, the book is organized by season, which takes me back to the days where you could tell what time of year it was by whether I was drinking a gin & tonic or a bourbon & ginger. Of course, now I live in San Francisco where seasonal drinking has less relevance, but that just means that practically every day is potentially a Pimm’s day. Lucky me.

*In non-drinking news, I’d like to offer an apology to anyone whose comment was lost due to the issues Blogger was having earlier in the week. Please know that I did not delete your comment on purpose and feel free to repost!

Opera 101—It’s Hard Out Here for a Poet

Earlier this year, I was invited to a preview of Ensemble Parallèle’s production of Orphée by Philip Glass. Far from familiar with postwar concert music or contemporary opera, I was wary at best. However, with the inspiration and libretto being taken directly from the film by Jean Cocteau, my love of French cinema soon won out. The presentation was impressive and, although I had my doubts about some of the design elements, I looked forward to the production.

La Princesse (Death) and Orphée.
Photo by Steve DiBartolomeo 

I was not disappointed. Much to my surprise, I liked the music (and I’m sure the young Philip Glass fan that was my brother in high school would be shocked to hear me say that). Additionally, the singing was outstanding. I had heard a sample last month, but the full cast was really impressive, especially Marnie Breckenridge as La Princesse and Eugene Brancoveanu as Orphée. If you’ve been reading this blog since I started it in September, you know that I only recently began exploring the world of opera with my first subscription to the SFO. I don’t claim to know much about opera singing, but my partner in crime and all things opera, the Maratonista Minimalista, agreed that we didn’t think anything we saw this past fall had such consistently strong singing by all the leads (although some of the French diction could have been improved).

As for the production, while the film Orphée is already a modern, surrealist spin on the Greek myth of Orpheus (who travels to the underworld to rescue his bride), this staging went a bit further by adding a circus element to the depiction of the underworld—harkening back to another French director, Marcel Camus, who set his Orpheus, Orfeu Negro, during Brazil’s Carnaval. This concept ended up working very well and really elevated the second act above some of the sillier surrealist elements of the first. I particularly enjoyed watching the silk aerialist (and, of course, sfmike, who performed admirably as a circus henchman throughout). I would have loved if they had also used the Roue Cyr onstage during the deaths of the first act, although I imagine it may have been too dangerous to do that.

It’s really a shame there are only two performances of this thoroughly enjoyable show. If you can make it to today’s performance at 2:00 pm at the Herbst Theater, I encourage you to do so. I don’t think I’ll ever prefer contemporary pieces over some of the “classics,” but Ensemble Parallèle certainly made me want to explore modern music further and I look forward to next year’s production of John Harbison’s The Great Gatsby. I can think of no higher praise.

[Disclosure: I received complimentary press tickets for this performance. Please refer to my policy page for more information.]

Opera 101—The Modern World and the Underworld

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to dip my toe into the pool of contemporary opera when I attended Ensemble Parallèle’s preview of their production of Philip Glass’s Orphée, which will be performed on February 26-27 at the Herbst Theater here in San Francisco. While postwar concert music is not really my thing, and my knowledge of Philip Glass is limited to my brother’s repeated playing of the Koyaanisqatsi* soundtrack in high school, I was intrigued by the Orphée part of the equation, as the Jean Cocteau film was one of the first I studied in graduate school.

The film itself is a modern, surrealist spin on the Greek myth of Orpheus, whose main claim to fame was travelling to the underworld to retrieve his beloved Eurydice, killed on the day of their wedding. Orpheus persuades the gods through the power of his song to be allowed to bring his wife back from Hades, but only on the condition that he not look back at her until reaching the land of the living; however, like Lot’s wife, he fails to resist the temptation, losing her forever.

Cocteau updates the setting to postwar France, where Orpheus is a famous poet, hated by rivals, but adored by the public (only in France, people). In this version, Death falls in love with Orpheus, which complicates matters with his one true love just a bit. But how can one resist when Death is played by Maria Casares with steely determination and killer outfits? Although the special effects are laughable by today’s standards, the film remains extremely poetic, if a tad bizarre at times. I can totally see why it would appeal to a modern composer like Philip Glass, although I was somewhat disappointed to learn that he pretty much lifted the libretto straight from the film.

Surprisingly, I quite liked the music we heard and the singers, especially Eugene Brancoveau playing the lead, did an excellent job with it. This production is also adding a circus element to the depiction of the underworld, which I found to be a really interesting idea and totally in keeping with the spirit of the film. I particularly loved that the motorcyclist henchmen would be played by people in Roue Cyr. I was less convinced by some of the other design elements, but I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt based on what I saw.

As a side note, it was lovely to meet so many bloggers who have taught me so much about the San Francisco music scene these past months including SFMike (albeit briefly), The Opera Tattler, and Axel Feldheim, who I was thrilled to discover really isn’t a scary German. A big thank you to John Marcher for the invitation.

*As my New England town only had a 99-cent movie theater that played movies very late in their run, we would sometimes drive quite a ways to see something semi-interesting. However, these weren’t exactly “family nights” at the movies, since typically we all arrived together but then almost inevitably chose different theaters. The night my brother saw Koyaanisqatsi, my father and I saw the re-release of Rear Window, and my mother saw some Italian film, The Night of the Shooting Stars, maybe?

Cry “Havoc!” and Let Slip the Dogs of War (and Peace)

Yes, I’m finally jumping on the blog train. With just minutes to spare, as usual. First Facebook, now this. How will I ever keep my hard-won luddite cred?

Still, I feel the need to document my attempts to recover from academia and get back into such radical notions as reading for pleasure and taking advantage of life in the big city. While this blog will probably have a strong focus on books, I expect to bring up all aspects of pop and high culture, from Mad Men to Madama Butterfly.

Why now? Well, for much of the last twenty years, September has meant the start of a new year, a time for new projects. This fall, I’m particularly looking forward to exploring the world of opera with my first subscription to the San Francisco Opera. I’m also about to take on the biggest challenge of my reading year: War and Peace.

One of the things most responsible for my becoming a reader again was a friend’s 24-in-a-year reading resolution and challenge on Facebook. In a moment of weakness (or madness), I decided to up the stakes by making half of those books classics that I should have read already, but had never gotten around to. This idea had been lingering in the back of my mind ever since a conversation with a fellow professor where I was too embarrassed to admit that I hadn’t read Don Quixote. Other books on the list include Catch-22, Le Comte de Monte-Cristo, The Education of Henry Adams, Lord of the Flies, Macbeth, La Princesse de Clèves, and, of course, War and Peace. In my next post, I will discuss how I have dealt with the difficulties of getting through this challenge. In the meantime, I'd love to hear what would be at the top of your "should-read" list.

Last, but not least, I want to give a shout-out to Stasia, a fabulous blogger (among other things), who inspired me to get on this crazy train. Check her out at http://swardkehoe.blogspot.com/.