Famous opera arias

Twice I have searched for the most popular opera arias and listened to them.  Nearly all the recordings are on YouTube.  The second time I did that I experienced an odd feeling, one of almost being drunk.  Elation, joy, happiness.  They are not all depictions of love or positive feelings.  Mozart’s The Magic Flute has a famous aria by the Queen of the Night.  It is beautiful and very memorable but it turns out the woman is enraged that her daughter refuses to murder a man the Queen deeply hates.  The Queen has commanded her own daughter to take this dagger and kill Sarastro. When the daughter, a grown woman, refuses to do so, the Queen flies into a deep rage, threatening to disown the daughter.

Who's tense?

One day, I was paging through the campus schedule of classes and I saw a class entitled “Relaxation”.  I had just finished a class that I had planned and lectured in.  I thought it must be much easier to teach students to lie down, be quiet and still and relax.  That was the beginning of my being aware that for some people in some circumstances, relaxation can be difficult to achieve.

I just looked up “are more men or women too tense” and found “Women experience anxiety disorders at nearly twice the rate of men. “ I also read that there comes a moment in a girl’s life when she realizes she is being looked at by a man.  The sort of looking could be judgemental, evaluative and the result could be negative!

Old news

I found out today that I am not in the popular wave.  I am not surprised nor uncomfortable.  I have been nerdy and out-of-fashion often.  Who else would buy an expensive watch and not wear it in favor of an older, cheaper watch?  Who else continues to email when texting is IN? Who else uses Google, Firefox, Duckduckgo and others several times a day to ask about tiny or weird issues? Who else prefers a low-cost laptop over a pocket-handy smartphone?

Mary Roach books

Bonk - human sex and reproduction

Gulp - eating and the parts of the body that treat food

Replaceable You - emerging practices and technology that replaces or substitutes worn-out part of the body

Stiff - adventures of the body after death

Mary Roach writes unusual non-fiction books about humans, their bodies and their lives.  The titles listed above are some of my favorites

Starting, stopping and re-reading

C.S.Lewis wrote a book called “An Experiment in Literary Criticism”.  His proposed experiment deals with re-reading.  He pictures a middle-aged reader in a library trying to recall if this book is one that she has read or not.   He was a professor of literature and knew plenty about books and reading. He emphasized that a well-written book may repay re-reading, in part or in whole.  He wonders whether the quality of a book should be figured by how often it is re-read. 

Is there coffee?

My wife does not like interruptions.  That trait and others have gotten me to be the coffee-maker in our mornings.  But we are both aging.  That enabled me to forget to deliver a cup to her after the coffee finished brewing.  I don’t think I have managed to do that before.  About an hour after the drip stopped, she asked if the coffee was ready.  It had been ready for quite a while.  I promise to stay alert to the coffee situation.

Saint Monday

I am reading “The Week” by David Henkin.  He wrote about “Saint Monday” and lost me.  I looked up “Saint Monday” and found that as people moved into the industrial age from the agricultural age, workers invented “Saint Monday”.  Such a saint drew reverent absence from a job after a weekend of too much alcohol.  Shades of Labor Day!

Clay by Guest Blogger Dr. LS Kirby

As out-of-season as this seems, I am getting a lot of things made for Christmas. But really, it takes a lot of  time to get everything made, dried, fired, glazed, fired again, listed in the gallery's inventory, labels made (by someone else at the gallery) and put on the pieces (by me), everything packed up to take to the gallery, take down the last display, move all the pedestals to different spots for the next show, and set up the display.

"Everything in moderation"

Another version of the idea of keeping moderation in all areas of life is “nothing in excess”.  I am wondering if the saying is well-applied to length of life.  Living can be a pleasure and I have heard that once life is abandoned, it cannot be resumed.  So, it follows that one should be cautious about giving up on life.  My wife often said that she wanted a long life provided it was also a reasonably healthy one. I think it is possible to enforce a number of provisions and demands that life meet.

Participation

If the book club’s selection doesn’t appeal, you can still “participate” (in a way) in the club’s discussion of the book without taking time to read the book.  AI can summarize the book for you.  You can buy a summary of the book from Amazon or other sources.  You can make interested comments or general questions during the discussion of the book.  You can just nod occasionally and smile once in a while thereby getting credit for being a participating member without interrupting your own schedule.