Thursday, December 25, 2008

Two Reviews

Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963-Italian)

4 stars:
"Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film is impeccable trio of comic tales, with Loren never more beautiful... " Leonard Maltin


No stars:\
"A relentlessly boring compendium, with everyone shouting at once." Halliwell

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Resolution

Things seem to have worked out nicely--vis-a-vis my teaching.

I will be teaching the opera course, which I love, at Bergen Community College, beginning in March.

I will be running the Notable Speakers course at BCC, beginning in February.

And Monday I shall be visiting JCC on the Palisades, to see about my teaching a financial course.

I think I am well rid of the Institute of New Dimensions and its arrogant, high-handed curriculum committee.

They didn't want me to teach THREE courses there. They have gotten their wish.

Saturday, December 06, 2008

Highly recommended

Wives and Daughters BBC production
North and South BBC production

Both based on novels by Elizabeth Gaskell

Available in many libraries & through Netflix--

If you like Jane Austen, you will like Mrs. Gaskell!

Taken by the Met?

I couldn't get to use my tickets to see the Oppenheimer opera at the Met, Dr. Atomic. A family emergency.

No problem, I was told by a Met person on the phone. Send the tix in & we'll get you a substitute date. In fact, I was told the date.

I mailed the tix in--about a week before the performance.

Then I get a phone call from the Met--the tix I had sent in had arrived too late for anyone to use them! So I wasn't going to get the substitute tix after all. But I could see Lucia in a few days. I couldn' go that night. We'll give you another alternative, he promised. (He never has.)

I also got an email msg that my tix had arrived too late. The phone message said they had arrived on Thursday, the email that they had arrived on Friday. "Today" was the word used.

Suspicious.

Hard to believe that the tix had not arrived in a whole week.

Had the ticket office simply decided to sell my Dr. Atomic tix to someone else-and make a little extra money?

I had thought the Met would be above such sleaziness.

I'll send this posting to the Met's director.

Mischief

I had asked AS, the custodian, to set aside the smaller room for my next class at IND, my music class, so that I could show movies on the TV there. Only the smaller room has a TV.
I arrived Tuesday, for the larger class, and it’s being held in the SMALLER room. And there are over 100 people crowed into a room that seats 50! AS shows me my email message—set aside the smaller room for my next class. He thought THIS was the next class. (He said.)
Did he really think I would ask for the smaller room when 131 people have signed up for this class? When the fire dept was called last time there was overcrowding? How come he had a printout of my old email message with him? Why didn't he phone me if he had doubts about which room I meant? After all, I typically show movies in my music class, not the five-part series, the other class--where I only rarely talked.
So, all of us had to move to the bigger room.


Why had AS done it? Mischief. To bring a little excitement into his life—when he had an excuse (because of my somewhat ambiguous email message). To express his anger – at his lowly fate in life, being a "custodian."

I learned yesterday that he had been "terminated." I don't know why--I had never complained about him.

Thursday, December 04, 2008

Revenge is a dish

best served cold. But warm or even hot will do.

I'll be teaching my Great Singers course at Bergen Community College in the spring.