I went to the Cincinnati Opera last night, and my first, most overwhelming, most lasting response: WOW!
I wasn’t sure I could handle 6 hours of opera, but the hours flew by, being exposed to the talents of the cast, the art of the sets, the energy of the audience. Having the tickets I had certainly helped, too. First balcony, first row, dead center. The acoustics and the view were spectacular. I loved being able to see into the pit, get to experience the musicians as artists and people rather than recordings.
The story was Shakespearean, filled with confusion, convoluted planning, star-crossed lovers. There was word play (I was able to catch some of the German, but the supertitle translations helped, too). There was cross-generational conflict. There was love of plot, characters and progression.
Given my background (my far, far away background, of say, high school), I love the performing arts. I miss being a part of a stage production, miss feeling the wave of music hit me as I take in a breath to push my voice into an audience. I miss that rush. But experiencing the wave of music, in terms of vocal and instrumental, on the other side of the stage was a welcome reminder of the energy that music, poetry, art can give.
The story behind the music, too, helped to inspire me to do everything I can to preserve a love of music and the arts in the next generation of my children.
So, my basic review: Never let a sub-textual title of “The Six Hour Opera” keep you from experiencing Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg.
I’m a geek, and I embrace this title. I cherish the idea that not only is okay to be smart and devoted to being the outliers of our social bubble, it is something to be PROUD of.
I’m not a hardcore geek. I am far from being a Geek God, as my husband is. (This ranking comes courtesy of http://www.innergeek.us/geek.html, the first version of which we both helped to draft, among our close circle of geeks and wannabes.)
My personal rank is Total Geek. I’m hoping to move up the chain of commands in geeks by attending my first San Diego Comic Con in 2010. I’m sure a few more boxes will be checked off once I attend - for example, I picked up a Star Trek dress to wear… But despite my somewhat lower status on the geek totem pole, I’m a hard-core lover of all things geek.
I can’t wait to have light shine on me from polite smiles to a crowd by some of my favorite stars. I can’t wait to basque in the glow of my husband basquing in the glow of Felicia Day. (My glow will be bright; his will be effervescent.) I look forward to watching, mouth agape, the wondrous parade at the Masquerade.
The idea of the overwhelming number of exhibits and booths for me to explore boggles my mind. And I can’t wait to have my breath catch at that perfect symbol of my time spent celebrating geekery. Will I find a new comic that draws me in? Will I find a Magic Card to add to my pitiful collection? Will I find a signed copy of something by Gaiman, Carroll (Lewis or Jonathan), or Card?
I will be tired. You might find me curled up against a wall, a book in hand, eyes shut even though the pages are open. You might find me limping along because the boots (I have yet to find) for that Star Trek dress weren’t broken in enough before the 7 block walk to the convention center from our hotel room. But then again, you might find me bouncing in line to be let into a seminar, high on Bawls if I can find a vendor selling it.
No matter what, you’ll be able to find me. I’ll be the redhead in the figurative corner, people watching, wishing I could wiggle out of the straight jacket created by years of trying to hide my geekdom.
But this year, I’ll be making more of a tear in that restraint than ever before, and I can’t wait.
Even if I’m not the newbie for you, please include one of us in your documentary. We’re part of the crowd, too, and Comic Con is just as exciting for us.
Thank you,
Brianna Cole
aka HippieLunatic
If you are interested in trying to get your own spotlight, send comiccondoc *at* gmail.com a note… Check out http://comic-con.morganspurlock.com/ for a little more info.
The Ghost in Love makes me want to track down Jonathan Carroll and hug him. (The Land of Laughs made me want to hug him, but this novel takes it up a notch.)
This is the story of Ben, his former girlfriend - German, his ghost - Ling, and his dog - Pilot. To say the least, it is a complex tale of how the four of them interact with the rest of society, the world at large, each other, and themselves. This novel explores many aspects of the self and the amount of power an individual has over the course of his life.
Perhaps the strongest compliment I can give to the beauty of this work is that I did not want to finish it. I got to the final chapter, and I was so in love with the characters, the depth of the themes, the lyrics of the prose, that I could not fathom how it was going to end, and I didn’t want it to. Much like in the midst of new relationship energy, you can’t imagine any way that a partnership will falter, and you want to grab on tightly to any piece of the beauty you are enveloped in, I wanted to hold on to this story, never see it end, but allow my heart to play the “what if” game over and over, following multiple paths the story might take, where certain decisions might lead.
So, I put it down. I waited a few hours. And then I had to pick it back up, as I didn’t want to be separated from it any longer.
The final chapter was a thing of beauty, if a bit too blatant in a few moments for my personal taste. I felt as though Carroll was hitting the reader on the head (gently, not wanting to hurt you) with his mantra. And while I appreciated it once, maybe even twice, I did get to a point where I wanted to hug the man a bit more tightly just to get him to shut up. I loved the message, but I also appreciate subtlety.
Overall, The Ghost in Love is a masterpiece of the exploration of taking charge of one’s self and destiny. The faults are part of the whole, make the whole more stunning, and should not be viewed as a weakness of the piece… as that would mean I took nothing from the work at all.
To any fan of the short story genre, this is a collection well worth exploring. Black was able to twist and turn variations of love into a classical masterpiece, in this reader’s opinion. She is able to touch on familiar love which becomes eye-opening in what a sighted father has been blind to in his daughter’s growth as a sightless young adult.
Black is able to touch on loss and how to deal with the grief of not having enough time with a loved one.
She is able to explore the idea of a dying woman who can bare more to her neighbor whom she knows only of in terms of a territorial conflict than she can her husband or her son.
She does all with grace and attention to detail which I found mesmerizing.
This is a brilliant exploration of what stands behind the seeming Utopia of Oz. While there are parts that don’t quite live up to the musical, there are parts of the musical that come no where close to the depth of the novel, either (as should rightly be the case).
I adored getting a better feeling of the story of the Wicked Witch of the West, what would have led her to the woman she becomes in the Wizard of Oz. Knowing her family life, her relationship with her sister, her connection with Glinda before they are merely at each other’s throats. I loved the lead in, learning about the politics and the different areas of Oz, each with their own complexities. Perhaps more than that, though, I adored seeing how intentions and perceptions do not match. How I can see the story of Dorthy as portrayed by Baum in glimpses of Maguire’s tale is absolutely fantastic.
As a reader who is interested in interpersonal relationships as well, I was struck by some of the non-traditional diagrams of relationships. There was a significant exploration of a triad relationship between Elphaba’s mother, father, and another man. There was mention of a sex scene bar. There was a prominent relationship between a married man and Elphaba, with a child being born to them.
Maguire has turned the Wonderful Wizard of Oz into the father the Wicked Witch of the West, making both characters that much grander in the eyes of this reader.
This is a book that all aspiring writers should read, focusing on the importance of story to the world. It also sheds some light as to the ways writers can take what they know, transform it into fiction, but still leave the gravity of truth embedded in it.
No, it was not a war he agreed with, not a war he wanted to be a part of, but he was also able to make me see the reality of being too afraid to *not* go to war when drafted. I could see how this boy had very few other options available to him, makes me grieve all the more for those soldiers who get sent to war without a true choice in the matter, without a true desire to help fight the battles the governments have said are vital to our well-being.
The lyrical beauty of O’Brien’s prose made me cherish the images of war in ways that I would never have thought possible, while at the same time, making me a more solid hippie. As he describes the scene of a young man, “one eye closed, one eye a star shaped hole,” I was taken to the path, taken into the head of the soldiers dealing with this image, taken into the grit that can both scar and create a new man. Being exposed to the brutality of death, the coping mechanisms employed in order to deal with that death and gore, I am grateful that I will likely never have to become one of the soldiers for whom this is personal history.
I must be on a biblical fiction streak, because, wow, this was another fabulous read… at least for me.
The story of Dinah (she gets chapter 34 of Genesis, kind of…) is told from her point of view in this massive book of her life. We are given background, shadows and highlights, details and grand scheme images, all of which I was fond of. This kind of exploration of a character, who on a read-through the Bible might not (and didn’t for me, at least) garner any further questions, is breath-taking.
Not only are we given a peak into Dinah’s life, though, we are given a possible universe in terms of female relationships in the times of Jacob and Joseph. What it means to be a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother, a mid-wife, a wet-nurse, a widow, a wanderer… these are what it means to be Dinah. But Diamant’s exploration of this girl (and this woman) goes beyond the gender roles she plays, and allows me to see the omnipresence of femininity, in terms of growth, dreams, and desires.
There are claims that this novel is a bit too free with the sexual descriptions of Dinah, her mothers, and the workings of female lives in general (birthing, feeding, caring, pleasuring), but this could not be further from my read of the novel at all. Instead, I think the book could not have worked without all of these snapshots of a woman’s body and the creation of a niche for that body in the every day lives of the people of the Old Testament.
This is a powerful book for any woman interested in the historical period of Jacob and Joseph, for any woman interested in interpersonal relationships between women (and how they might have a constant structure in time), for any woman interested in faith - how it can be viewed as intrinsic, irresolute, and increased over the course of a life.
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