That’s just it – it’s haunting. I have a loved one in a coma and this book gives me both hope and fear. The human mind is an amazingly complex and subtle bit of machinery, and Bauby captures it in its extremes.

Part auto-hagiography, part history of trivia, this book goes to great lengths to justify being absolutely fascinated with that nebulous grouping of facts labeled “trivia.” Jennings writes in a pretty affable manner that makes the reading very quick, but also is rather strained as he tries to keep up journalistic tones.

So, I didn’t actually enjoy reading this book. It’s so cheesey that it’s hard to believe that anyone could actually be moved by it. The supernatural events are knee-slappingly funny (uhh, giant helmet anyone?) when they’re supposed to be slightly terrifying. The characters, well, the characters are mostly just cardboard cut outs. The plot – the only thing that the book actually has in abundance – is absolutely and totally ridiculous. Compound all of this with Walpole’s manic obsession with abrupt changes in topic as well as the lack of indentation to indicate a new line of dialogue, and the book is almost painful to read.

But I still think it was worth it. For all the ridiculousness of it, the book seems to be more of a compressed outline than a novella, which makes it a ridiculously quick read. Most of what I find ridiculous and cliche was actually innovative at the time, and reading the book helps set the backdrop for the genre of Gothic literature of which The Castle of Otranto was the first.

When you read it, prepare for a reading in the history of literature; if you go in expecting good literature you will be disappointed.

I’m in China right now, and I’ve always known that China has had a rough history. I’ve taken a class. I’ve seen the numbers.

But this class really brought home the feelings from that time. I don’t take it to be a true history, but it does show how one life – the author’s – was effected by the upheavals in China in the twentieth century. I can’t say that the facts are correct, but what is important in this book is the emotion that really comes through – emotion that is too often absent when we think about countries on the other side of the world.

The book also hit a chord with me about the legendary Chinese pragmatism. It is said that the most important thing is to live, but that often seems to put one’s life over another’s, which is a calculation easy to make pragmatically; at the very worst, I’ll be able to make up for it later. But after reading this book and seeing how terribly bad that pragmatism can go… I’m not sure I aspire to mastering that Chinese ability to 吃苦.

http://www.kafka.existoffend.com/vulturestory.html

This opera is not the overwraught Viking singspiel that most people imagine to be opera; it is subtle, it is well sung, and it is amazingly beautiful. The people that consume this opera and that really enjoy it are those that are able to appreciate true aesthetic beauty in this world of overdone plastic charades.

The toccata is transcendental. Of course the rest of the opera is fantastic, but the toccata is absolutely fantastic. The tune is rather simple, but it is easy to get stuck in your head.

The repetitions though, that’s what really got me.

The first repetition is just percussion and brass, the loudness of the outside world.

And then the artist comes, and produces the next repetition with strings and harpsichord.

And then the two fuse. There is an artistic synthesis, a catharsis, as the percussion and the strings and the brass and the harpsichord come together to create one beautiful whole.

I aim to have this toccata describe my life.

Caballe rocks. There is no other way to put it. Her rendition of “Casta diva” is absolutely sublime, and the orchestra is deftly led throughout the entire opera. A complete pleasure for the ears.

Absolutely the best recording of Carmen out there that I’ve listened to. Horne’s voice is strong, both musically and theatrically, and is a true pleasure to listen to. Bernsteins tempi are radically different from the average recording, but they all make sense and add a lot more depth to the opera throughout the recording.

This is the first recording of Carmen that I ever listened to, and thus I am naturally predisposed to liking it. The truth is that Price’s voice doesn’t fit the normal idea of what Carmen should sound like… seeing as she’s a soprano but Carmen should be a mezzo. Nonetheless, the entire recording is fantastic, especially the young(er) Mirella Freni as Micaela. The sound on this one is pretty good, though extremely quiet at key points (beginning of habanera).