a bizarre form of entertainment

Mr. Baby went to his first opera the other night: I thought Mozart would be a lovely introduction to the genre, and the timing worked out to go to Don Giovanni.

It was an uncomfortable occasion for a couple of reasons, the first being that we went with an old friend of his, who as his former teacher and mentor, usually treats. Which is alright with me--I do like my treats--however, he purchased $160 tickets (that would be $160 each. For three of us). I realize that opera is not cheap, but there are cheaper seats and I could have gotten us student tix if it had just been me and Michael. So that was a bit blush-worthy. Moreover, the production had received a gruesome review in the latimes and so then, I felt all the guiltier for having suggested going to this show. It's odd, I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but when people do not enjoy the restaurants or shows I suggest, I feel like I've cooked the food or staged the play myself! and disappointed all and sundry personally! It's a weird phenomenon.

In any case, the staging was a bit chaotic and slightly incomprehensible, like it was being odd for the sake of edgy rather than any representational value. Michael was also surprised at the how much like Broadway type musical theater it was in that the audience would respond overtly after every aria and would go nuts over certain performers and reserve only polite golf claps after others. I've only been to operas in SF, where this is much less the case, but yes, the culture of gossip and evaluation is very much part of opera. And it is strange to be a part of.

His final word was that he would go with me to operas again but that, on the basis of this first dip into it, he would define an opera as a bad play, drawn out too long and poofed out by the singing parts--all an all, a bizarre form of entertainment.

Anyway, since then, I've gotten out a couple of not-too-tight, not-too-catchy postdocs. The work progresses if bumpily and without much enthusiasm.

I have a heap of work to do over the weekend: must read late Heidegger essays and prep a presentation (fri night and sat afternoon), read a set of poems by Cesar Zapata and get ready for a luncheon with him (sat evening), grade my students' revised compositions (sunday morning), and do a close reading of Chamoiseau (sat morning). Heaps!

Netflixed
Hot Fuzz
The movie takes an eternity to set up the main point--I'll back up, the hero is an overachieving british police officer who gets banished to the countryside because he's making his superiors in London look bad, and it turns out this country village is run by a loony tunes cult who want their village to be the perfect place on earth, that's the main discovery--but it is a brilliant example of artwork that is something and simultaneously consciously and overtly mocks it. Hot Fuzz does that with the "buddy movie" genre. Pina Bausch's show influenced by Japanese dance did the same thing: it borrowed the aesthetics of a foreign culture pretty superficially and clearly relished in that surface attraction, but also mocked it with great efficiency and class.