obiterdicta

Recent thoughts...

2011-05-25T08:01:00.000-07:00

I fired someone recently--and I get pleasure every time I think about it--details to come--

The Killing: the acting is on a higher level than you see elsewhere--the father, the mother, and the kids are amazing--

I really hated Wagner's Die Walkuere--why did I think I would enjoy it? Why does anyone enjoy it?

I recently won 3 awards from NJ Society of Professional Journalists--Daily Record, my former employer, won none--I'm still fuming that the new editor, Flachsennar, forced me out...because he was jealous of my leading role at the paper--

I have to give a talk tomorrow on 5 famous pianists--too many! I spent so much time on it!--tonight i'll try to organize my talk better--

I miss the Good Wife--

Damn it, I should finish writing my ebook on investing!

Beethoven's 9th

2010-08-24T05:40:00.000-07:00

From the book “The Ninth: Beethoven and the World in 1824” (2010) by Harvey Sachs:

“Beethoven is the quintessential genius of Western culture,” wrote Tia DeNora in her 1995 study, Beethoven and the Construction of Genius.

Mikhail Bakunin, the Russian revolutionary, heard the ninth for the first time in Dresden in 1849, and told the conductor, Richard Wagner, that “if all the music that has ever been written were lost in the expected world-wide conflagration, we must pledge ourselves to rescue this symphony, even at the peril of our lives.”

Heiligenstadt, where Beethoven wrote his famous testament, is now part of Vienna.

Conservative musicians told him, regarding an unorthodox passage he had written, that the rules do not permit it. His reported response: “The rules don’t permit it? Very well: I [italics] will permit it!”

Furtwangler: “To compare Bach with Beethoven is like comparing an oak tree with a lion.”

The feminist poet Adrienne Rich “reviled the entire work as a ‘sexual message’ written by a man ‘in terror of impotence or infertility, not knowing the difference.’”

Toscanini on the third movement: “It lifts me off the earth, removes me from the field of gravity, makes me weightless. One becomes all soul. One ought to conduct it on one’s knees.”

Meyerbeer, who wrote grand operas, at 23 is said to have played timpani or bass drum under Beethoven’s baton in a performance in Vienna of the Battle symphony in 1814. Beethoven reportedly said that the young man “did not strike [the drum] properly and was always too late. Therefore, I really had to give him a dressing down. Ha! Ha! Ha! This may have upset him. Nothing will become of him. He does not have the courage to strike at the right moment.”

Remembering Joe E. Brown

2010-08-13T05:54:00.001-07:00

Exactly Who Was Joe E. Brown?

The other day I saw Joe E. Brown, the wide-mouthed comedian, in the movie remake of “Showboat” (1951), playing Captain Andy opposite Kathryn Grayson and Ava Gardner. A few weeks before, I had seen him in “Sally” (1929), the old musical with the Jerome Kern song “Look for the Silver Lining.” His dance with Marilyn Miller is one of the film’s highlights. (Miller could dance and sing -– a little.)
Of course, his most notable role in recent years was as the millionaire Osgood Fielding III in “Some Like It Hot” (1959), opposite Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, and the other Marilyn, a film in which he gets to utter the classic line, “Nobody’s perfect.” And I recall that he played a baseball player in a few old films, like “Alibi Ike,” based on a Ring Lardner short story.
What has struck me is how little I know about Joe E. Brown –- although I have seen him in so very many movies. Leonard Maltin’s “2010 Movie Guide” lists famous actors in the back, with all of their films. Joe E. Brown doesn’t even appear – as he might have, squeezed between Louise Brooks and Sandra Bullock.
So I decided to do some research – mainly, reading what Wikipedia had to say.
Here’s what I learned:
His name really was Joseph Evans Brown, born in Holgate, Ohio, in 1892. He died in 1973.
He went from being a circus acrobat to semi-pro baseball player to comedian. By 1931 he was a Hollywood movie star. He was praised for his role as Flute in the 1935 film of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” directed by Max Reinhardt and also starring James Cagney, Dick Powell, and Olivia DeHaviland.
In 1939, he testified before the House immigration committee in support of letting 20,000 German Jewish children enter the country. (A relative of Roosevelt’s had said sneeringly that these “ugly children will grow into ugly adults.”) He adopted two refugees, two girls.
In 1941, one of his sons, Capt. Don E. Brown, was killed when his military plane crashed.
During World War II he spent a good deal of time entertaining troops, here and abroad, at his own expense. He is one of two civilians to have received the Bronze Star for his work during World War II.
He had cameo roles in “Around the World in 80 Days” and “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.”
From 1953 to 1964, he broadcast Yankee baseball games.
Once, in the 1950s, he appeared on “What’s My Line?” and it was clear what a modest, charming, and intelligent man he was. In fact, he had a reputation of being –- along with Jean Hersholt and Jack Benny –- among the really decent people in old Hollywood.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVU-XraIAMY

Best Pianists

2010-07-15T06:16:00.000-07:00

BBC Music magazine polled 100 living pianists as to their all-time piano heroes -- including Brendel, Ashkenazy, Hewitt, Pires, Grimaud, Thibaudet.

Here are the top 20:

1. Rachmaninov'
2. Rubinstein
3. Horowitz
4. Richter
5. Cortot
6. Lipati
7. Schnabel
8. Gilels
9. Argerich
10. Michelangeli
11. Zimerman
12. Friedman
13. Lupu
14. Fischer
15. Kempff
16. Perahia
17. Gould
18. Gieseking
19. Hofmann
20. Arrau

One Day University--One

2010-04-27T00:41:00.000-07:00

I admit that I'm proud that at 2 different sessions, I asked good questions--about China's involvement in Africa, about Copland's leaving Gershwin's name off a list of best American composers. So many students ask dumb questions that mine stood out--and elicited murmers of approval.

Overall, excellent talks--very worthwhile (esp at $99) -- altho the food for lunch was expensive ($3 for a Diet Coke, $3 for a small bag of cookies?)

One big benefit: Having heard a talk on Gershwin, I'll give my own lecture on Gershwin. Should attract a lot of students. (I've started reading the Pollack biography.)

I'll comment on the individual speakers and their views shortly...

Anti-Semitism in the Woodstock Times

2010-04-25T00:24:00.000-07:00

Happily, there have been no letters recently in the Woodstock Times from anti-Semites castigating Israel. So I was freed from any duty of responding to these letters.

A problem is that the editor of the Woodstock Times treats these letter-writers as if they were ladies and gentlemen.

They are not.

They are cockroaches.

They don't want a compromise, they don't want a two-star solution.

The want the end of Israel.

It is their version of a new Final Solution.

The paper's editor won't let me call these people neo-Nazis. When I wrote that one letter-writer was "stupid" for suggesting that Einstein would be opposed to the State of Israel, the editor changed my word to "naive."

I believe that anti-Semites should not just be refuted, but humiliated.

I'll shortly be publishing the names of some of these cockroaches.

Library Follies

2010-04-25T00:19:00.000-07:00

I have a weekend home in Woodstock, NY, and not long ago the library dunned me to pay for a biography of Kirsten Flagstad. I insisted that I had returned the book, but grumblingly paid to replace it. The book had been lent to the Woodstock library by the New Hyde Park Library.

I live during the week in Hackensack, NJ.

The other day, I went to a book sale in Hackensack, and there was a biography of Flagstad.

I bought it--for next to nothing.

I looked inside. The book came from the New Hyde Park Library.

I had inadvertently brought the book to the Hackensack library, not the Woodstock library.

Neo-Nazis in Woodstock

2010-02-26T01:18:00.000-08:00

That's what they should be called--
The letter-writers who continually bash Israel--
They are ill-educated...unsophisticated...angry...believe whatever they want to believe...so long as it's against Jews.
"Stupid" is probably the best word for them.

These days, a good many wacko people are seeking attention. And I guess the neo-Nazis feel it's their turn. That woman who wrote a book called "Traitors," saying all Democrats are traitors? Glen Beck? Every nutcase is seeking the spotlight these days--so why not the neo-Nazis?

Tarak Kauff

2010-02-14T06:25:00.000-08:00

There’s this letter-writer in Woodstock, Tarak Kauff, always writing anti-semitic letters to the local paper. And he claims he’s Jewish.

A pompous, pretentious housepainter. His letters are verbose and otiose. And he is ill-educated and ignorant.

But he writes with the assurance of a sage! Some with an IQ of 80 who thinks he has an IQ of 120!

This jerk, for example, claimed that Albert Einstein was against Israel.

Actually, a recent biography of Einstein proves that he was a strong Zionist.

Even Kauff’s misinformation just shows the shallowness of his thinking.

Kauff is mainly after attention. He thought and thought—and eureka! He realized that he could get attention by criticizing Israel at every opportunity—and saying again and again that he’s Jewish.

What a contemptible person!

Encounter With Renee Fleming

2010-02-04T06:10:00.000-08:00

At first, I had no idea what I might say to diva Renee Fleming, standing nearby at a late-night reception at the Harvard Club in New York City on Feb. 3. Then I had an inspiration.
“I have a question,” I said. She turned to me. “Yes?”
“Gracie Moore said that once, when she was about to sing a high C, the tenor singing next to her deliberately stepped on her foot.”
Fleming laughed and said, if she said it, it must be true.
She wrote it, I said. Has anything like that ever happened to you?
“Tenors,” she said. “If I was about to hold a note longer than the tenor, he would squeeze my arm to let me know I should stop.”
I was thinking of mentioning that Franco Corelli had once complained to Rudolf Bing that Birgit Nilsson, in a duet they were singing that night, had held a note longer than he had. Bing told him to bite her the next time it happened. So, later on, apparently he nipped her—on the shoulder, perhaps.
The next day, Nilsson phoned Bing. She might have to cancel a few performances, she warned him. She had to be examined for rabies.
But while I was thinking of mentioning this to Renee Fleming, she had already turned to listen to another of her admirers. And I’m sure she had already heard that story anyway.

What you may not know about Chopin

2010-01-15T11:58:00.000-08:00

18 Things You May Not Know about Chopin

This is the 200th anniversary of Frederic Chopin’s birth, in Poland, in 1810, so we should be prepared to hear a good deal of Chopin’s music this year. And the amount of beautiful music he wrote is astonishing. Especially considering that he died, of tuberculosis, at only 39.
Here are some facts about Chopin that you may not know:

1. His most famous composition, known around the world, is his funeral march -- the third movement of his Sonata in B Flat Major. You might also recognize his Fantasie-Impromptu (turned into “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows”), his Étude in E Major (“Oh, Promise Me”), his Polonaise in A Flat Major (“Till the End of Time”).
2. His father, who was French, moved to Poland, where he married a Polish woman. Hence Chopin’s French name. He grew up in Poland, then went to Paris, the mecca for artists in the early 19th century.
3. He wasn’t interested in “program” music — music with a literary meaning. So forget about the “Raindrop,” the “Revolutionary Étude,” “Butterfly,” and so forth. He didn’t name them.
4. Like Mozart, whom he idolized, he was a child prodigy. He had some of his music published at the age of 8.
5. How he composed: “He would lock himself in his room for whole days, weeping, pacing back and forth, breaking his pens, repeating or changing one bar a hundred times, writing and erasing it many times, and beginning again the next day with an infinite and desperate perseverance. He sometimes spent six weeks on one page, only in the end to write it exactly as he had sketched it in the first draft.” – George Sand
6. No one plays the “Minute” Waltz in 60 seconds. (Usual time: 1:50. Perhaps it should be re-named the “Two Minute” Waltz.)
7. What kind of person was he? Contradictory. While he could be charming and considerate, a Polish girl who studied with him wrote that he was a “weird and incomprehensible man…. You cannot imagine a person who can be colder and more indifferent to everything around him…. He is heavily endowed with wit and common sense…but when he is evil and angry he breaks chairs and stamps his feet.”
8. He made anti-Semitic comments in his letters, but his biographer, Jeremy Siepmann, points out that such remarks were “common change” among the Polish at the time.
9. He could be snippy. Visiting England, he met with “one of the most highly regarded great ladies” in her castle—a woman “considered a great musician.” One day, after he played the piano, “they brought a kind of accordion, and she began with the utmost gravity to play on it the most atrocious tunes. How about that? Every creature here seems to have a screw loose.” (Lesson: If Chopin comes to visit you, leave your damn accordion in the closet.)
10. Contemporary critics, Siepmann reports, were surprised that “such a refined and accomplished musician could come from so provincial and primitive a place as Poland.”
11. Some critics considered his music not manly enough. Artur Rubenstein, the pianist, wrote: “Chopin the man was seen as weak and ineffectual…effeminate if appealing, dipping his pen in moonlight to compose nocturnes for sentimental young women.” Yet, far from being shallow, sentimental music, Siepmann has written, Chopin’s music is “of the highest sophistication and intellectual acumen.”
12. When he first met the novelist George Sand, whom he lived with for ten years, he declared: "What a repulsive woman Sand is! But is she really a woman? I am inclined to doubt it." At first they were lovers; as his health declined they became like mother and son. Her novels are seldom read these days except by students of 19th century French fiction. Charles Baudelaire (“The Flowers of Evil”) wrote: “She is stupid, she is ponderous, she is long-winded. Her moral ideas have the depth of judgment and delicacy of feeling of those of concierges and kept women.” Siepmann notes that posterity has agreed with him.
13. What a magnificent pianist! He could, it was said, strike a note in 20 different ways. His hands were small, but they seemed to expand to cover a third of the keyboard. Someone said Chopin’s fingers seemed to be without bones.
14. Chopin became so ill with tuberculosis, coughing up blood incessantly, that he weighed only 98 pounds. He wrote: “I have been sick as a dog during these past two weeks. Three doctors have visited me. The first said I was going to die; the second said I was breathing my last; and the third said I was already dead." George Sand: “His whole being is too delicate, too exquisite, and too perfect to exist long in our coarse and heavy earthly life.”
15. Several movies have been made about Chopin, one of the better ones being “Impromptu,” starring Hugh Grant as Chopin.
16. When he died, at his request, his heart was cut out and placed in a Polish church, where it remains today. (One reason: He was fearful of being buried while still alive.)

17. Christopher Morley wrote this poem, under the title “Reciprocation”:

One good nocturne
Deserves another,
Said George Sand
When she met Chopin.

18. Claude Debussy wrote, “Chopin is the greatest of us all, for he discovered everything through the piano alone.”

The End of Anti-Semitism

2010-01-04T14:01:00.001-08:00

Hasn't anyone noticed?
Anti-Semitism is no more!
No one hates Jews anymore!
Isn't it amazing?

Of course, lots of people hate ISRAEL.
But they insist that they aren't anti-Semitic.
It's just an amazing coincidence that Israel, the country they hate, happens to be full of Jews....

A Word for Israel's Enemies

2010-01-02T12:56:00.000-08:00

A Word for Israel’s Enemies

I’ve been trying to think of a word – besides “crazies” -- that would accurately describe the people in the Woodstock area who are implacably hostile to Israel.
“Closed-minded” certainly seems appropriate. For years, Israeli civilians in the Sderot area endured rocket attacks from Gaza – 7,000 rockets. Even Justice Goldstone admitted that Israel had a right to retaliate. And President Obama, as a candidate, said, “The first job of any nation state is to protect its citizens. And so I can assure you that if...If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I'm going to do everything in my power to stop that. And I would expect Israelis to do the same thing.”
None of the Israel haters has expressed any sympathy for those Israelis or any condemnation for the Hamas terrorists.
One response from the closed-minded was: Those rockets were primitive. Well, they were sophisticated enough to kill 13 people. And since when is trying to kill someone with a rusty .32 less heinous than trying to kill someone with a brand-new .45?
But “only” 13 were killed? Well, how many had to be killed for Israel to determine to retaliate? I know the answer. None. The fact that innocent civilians were imperiled was enough. And if relatively few died, it was because the Israelis installed warning sirens (as Goldstone himself noted, they had only 14 seconds to seek shelter), and buttressed their buildings.
Another word besides “closed-minded” suggests itself: “contemptible.” These people really are saying that they don’t care about deaths -- so long as it’s Jews who die.
Israel’s response was disproportionate?
First, the thousand or so who were killed in Israel’s attack included a great many Palestinian soldiers – cowards who hid among the civilian population and didn’t wear military uniforms. And the Israelis apparently did their best to target only the military.
A British colonel, Richard Kamp, former commander of British Forces in Afghanistan, has written: “When possible the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] gave at least four hours' notice to civilians to leave areas targeted for attack…. During the conflict, the IDF allowed huge amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza. This sort of task is regarded by military tacticians as risky and dangerous at the best of times. To mount such operations, to deliver aid virtually into your enemy's hands, is to the military tactician, normally quite unthinkable. But the IDF took on those risks.”
Later, “the IDF unilaterally announced a daily three-hour cease- fire. The IDF dropped over 900,000 leaflets warning the population of impending attacks to allow them to leave designated areas. A complete air squadron was dedicated to this task alone…. The IDF phoned over 30,000 Palestinian households in Gaza, urging them in Arabic to leave homes where Hamas might have stashed weapons or be preparing to fight. Similar messages were passed in Arabic on Israeli radio broadcasts warning the civilian population of forthcoming operations.
“By taking these actions and many other significant measures… the IDF did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other Army in the history of warfare.”
Why didn’t Israel cooperate with the U.N. Human Rights Council? Because the council is notorious for its anti-Israeli bias. As the Associated Press reported recently, Israel tends to ignore reports of the Human Rights Council, "which includes many Arab and Muslim countries [and] is hopelessly biased against Israel."

I have a question: Why didn’t Goldstone, who is actually an honorable if misguided man, agree to debate Alan Dershowitz, the Harvard law professor? Dershowitz has nothing but contempt for the biased Goldstone report.
Another question: Why is Israel blockading Gaza? Isn’t it to keep weapons out of the hands of the Hamas terrorists? Is there something wrong with that?
And then there is Bill Campion of Mount Temper, who (1) bizarrely accused me of abusing St. Francis, (2) claims that I “celebrate” the killing of Palestinians (a lie), and (3) that I have really ticked off Osama bin Laden. I sure hope that (3) is true. And I want add that whenever someone as filled with blinding hatred as Campion is becomes apoplectic with rage, an angel sings.
As for those Jews who side with the crazies, I think that they are simply desperate for attention. They are life’s losers, lonely and unloved, like Tarak Kauff, the pretentious housepainter who writes all those ignorant, otiose, and verbose letters. “Crackpots” is another appropriate word.
Someone I respect a lot argues that these anti-Israel people are really neo-Nazis. “They are full of hate for Israel,” he tells me, “because Israelis are Jews. They want Israel and its Jews wiped off the map.”
I’m not sure that I would go that far.
But they sure are a loathsome bunch of creeps.
Creeps! That’s le mot juste, the perfect word!

Warren Boroson
Woodstock

Emerson Spa

2009-12-25T11:02:00.000-08:00

The clever ways merchants use to fleece you!

I went to the Emerson Spa in Mt. Tremper recently--

Checking out, I was asked: Do you want to put a tip on your bill?

Feeling I had to say yes, I did--

Well, I never found out what the tip was--it wasn't listed on the final bill--

But the clerk there was able to put ANY TIP SHE WANTED TO on the bill!

And it must have been a high one, because the size of the final bill surprised me--

Comment on a letter

2009-12-20T16:18:00.000-08:00

A few months ago, someone named Dreyfus wrote a letter to the Woodstock Times about Israel's attack on Gaza--

I didn't respond, but just thinking about the letter makes me mad--

He said that the rockets that were fired into Israel were primitive--

And that "only" 13 people were killed--

What a loathsome, contemptible person--

I may write: I hate to explode his cover, but Dreyfus is clearly a paid agent of the International Zionist Conspiracy--paid to write loathsome, despicable attacks on Israel--just so everyone can see how contemptible the enemies of Israel are--

+++

Some Jews write in, attacking Israel--one-sidedly--

I asked an authority on anti-semitism about this--

He said that these Jews might be terrified that what happened to the Jews in Europe might happen to them--so they are distancing themselves from other Jews--

I'll write to one of these people: I hate to break the bad news to you, but when the neo-Nazis come for me, they'll come for you, too--and if they can't find out where you are, I'll eagerly point out where you're hiding--

Artist's Palate

2009-12-19T15:32:00.000-08:00

Artist's Palate is a restaurant in Poughkeepsie, where you hear a lecture on the Met opera you'll see in a theater later on, and have a prix fixe meal--the menu didn't list prices, but it turned out to be $20 per person--and a glass of wine turned out to cost
$14 !!! Outrageous. And it turned out that there was a $10 cover charge! At the Bardovan nearby, where you see the opera, a glass of wine cost only $5.75 or something.

I wasn't sure whether the cover charge meant the tip or the remuneration for the speaker, so I left a tip--

Anyway, the food was good and the service was fine but the restaurant stinks.

Letter to the Woodstock Times

2009-12-17T13:21:00.000-08:00

Eyeless in Gaza

So, eight residents of the Woodstock area are going to Gaza to report on what’s going on there, bringing with them nothing in the way of credentials except closed minds and a fervent hatred of Israel and Jews in general. The Crazy Eight will surely be, like Samson, eyeless in Gaza, and will see only what they want to see. Who is paying for their trip and arranging it, I wonder. Iranian money?
Why aren’t they going to Sderot and interviewing Israelis terrorized by the 7,000 rockets raining down upon them in recent years?
In Gaza, will they try hard to free Gilad Shalit, illegally imprisoned by the Hamas terrororists? Who want to trade him for hundreds of imprisoned Palestinian terrorists? Isn’t that disproportionate?
Actually, a professional journalist, Tom Gross of the Wall Street Journal, recently toured the West Bank and found that the largest city, Nablus, was bursting with energy and showing signs of great prosperity. As for checkpoints, he drove from Jerusalem to Nablus without going through any Israeli checkpoints. The government of Benjamin Netanyahu has removed them all -- ever since the Israeli security services were allowed, in recent years, to crush the intifada, restore security to the West Bank, and set up the conditions for the economic boom that is now occurring.
In Gaza too, Gross wrote, the shops and markets he saw were crammed with food and goods.
The head of the Nablus stock exchange explained to Gross
why there is no rush on the part of the Palestinians to declare statehood: Ordinary Palestinians need the Israeli Defense Forces to help protect them from the Hamas terrorists, as their own security forces aren't ready to do so by themselves yet.
“The truth,” Gross concluded, “is that an independent Palestine is now quietly being built, with Israeli assistance.”
Make no mistake, the Crazy Eight and their sympathizers are so closed-minded and prejudiced that they believe that Israel can do nothing right and the terrorists can do nothing wrong. Last year, when Israel offered to create a Palestinian state on 97% of the West Bank (with 3% of pre-1967 Israeli land being added, to make up the shortfall), Mahmoud Abbas refused. “In the West Bank we have a good reality,’ Abbas told a Washington Post reporter. “‘The people are living a normal life.”
That’s why the protestations of the Israel-haters about their just being anti-Israel and not anti-Semitic are so clearly false. They ignore the horrible misdeeds of the evil Palestinian terrorists and blame Israel and the Jews for everything.
What motivates people like the Crazy Eight? Typically they’re life’s losers, abject failures; they didn’t succeed in their careers or their personal lives. They carry seething anger within them. If it weren’t Israelis they’re resentful of, it would be Catholics…or African-Americans…or Etruscans.
And their thinking is so shallow, their knowledge so pitiful. Einstein was opposed to a Jewish state? Well, an article in a recent issue of the Atlantic (December) quotes from an Einstein letter: “I am, as a human being, an opponent of nationalism. But as a Jew, I am from today a supporter of the Zionist effort.” Would the Israel-haters change their minds if they had read this? Well, prejudiced people generally don’t read The Atlantic. Too nuanced for them.
The casualties when Israel attacked Gaza were disproportionate? Isn’t an army supposed to limit the loss of its soldiers? I’m glad so few Israelis died. I wish fewer Palestinian civilians had died, but what should we expect, when their combatants hide out in apartment houses and schools?
As for Bill Campion of Mt. Tremper, who make the bizarre accusation that I abused St. Francis: The Greeks had a word for him. Meshugana.
And as for those people blaming me for “name-calling,” I would like to say in my defense that Hitler and Stalin were monsters, Senator Lieberman is utterly contemptible, Sara Palin is an idiot, and Glen Beck is a hitherto unknown and particularly disgusting new form of life. Oh, and that name-calling is often appropriate.
Anyway, I wish the Crazy Eight godspeed. And I hope they love Gaza so much that they never return here.

Warren Boroson
Woodstock

Dexter Morgan

2009-12-15T02:02:00.000-08:00

Some dramas are not entirely serious--they're not all that realistic--the James Bond movies, for instance--most movies with Cary Grant--esp movies with violence are usually not realistic--detective stories, for instance--the viewer/reader knows almost everything is improbable--

Dexter is such a pseudo-drama--you can't really believe that such a nice, ethical young man would murder people, even if they seemed to deserve murdering--in fact, the series seems to endorse the idea of vigilante-ism--

But in the most recent episode, something really horrible happens--reality intrudes into our nice fantasy--as if James Bond got his arm blown off--or Oliver Twist came down with TB--

The ending of this season's Dexter was a bad mistake on the part of the writers--

If Beethoven Had Lived...

2009-12-13T15:45:00.000-08:00

I sometimes wonder what Beethoven would have thought of the music of Tchaikovsky… Verdi…Mahler…Gershwin…Jerome Kern.

In his book “Beethoven: His Life & Music,” Jeremy Siepmann writes that if Beethoven (who died at 56) had lived to the same age as Haydn (77), he would have known the maturest work of Chopin, the complete works of Mendelssohn, Wagner’s Flying Dutchman and Tannhauser, the symphonies of Berlioz, even Verdi’s Macbeth and Nabucco.

Of course, if Beethoven had lived as long as Sibelius (92), he would have been familiar with much of Brahms, Liszt’s Sonata in B Minor and other major pieces, and Verdi’s Rigoletto, Trovatore, and Traviata.

The Goldwater Case

2009-12-12T19:35:00.000-08:00

Someone writing for Psychology Today's website did a study of the psychiatrists' responses to the Fact magazine poll about whether G was psychologically fit to be president--

He found that people who knew Goldwater personally thought he was healthy--
it was those who didn't know him who thought he was disturbed-

But you don't get to know someone very well by interacting with him socially--

You get a much better insight by knowing someone's views--

And Goldwater believed in brinksmanship--challenge the Soviet Union to a war, knowing that they will back down--
He said North Korea should be paved off like a parking lot--

In your head you know he's right
In your heart you know he's nuts--

popular saying of the time--

When Harris Steinberg, Fact's lawyer, said that to Goldwater on the stand, he told me later, he thought that Goldwater was going to hit him--

Music Music

2009-12-12T19:32:00.000-08:00

How lucky I am -- finding a second career teaching music--
And I LOVE it--
reading about Chopin, preparing a concert of his music--
I've given a talk about Puccini 3 times already--
And a talk about Mendelssohn-

next, a talk about Beethoven's 9th Symphony--In college, as a senior, I took a course on the symphony & still vividly recall what the teacher said about the 9th--

Chopin

2009-11-23T22:58:00.000-08:00

Next year is the 200th anniversary of Chopin's birth--I should write an article about him--reading a biography, listening to his music--it's hard to get an insight into him--but, as is true for so many others, it was Chopin who got me interested in classical music--as a child, I was mesmerized by the Waltz in C Sharp Minor--

Caught in a Traffic Trap

2009-11-23T22:55:00.000-08:00

Got a traffic ticket in Lodi, NJ--went through a stop sign--why? because I expected a YIELD sign--you can easily see all the oncoming traffic--
cops stationed by STOP sign, pulling drivers over--lots of cars pulled over--
curses on Lodi, NJ, cops--

Fallingsout With Friends

2009-11-22T23:27:00.000-08:00

I'm angry at a lot of former friends--
Why does this seem to happen as one grows older?

One couple: boring
A woman: right-winger, attacked my left-wing views
A lower-class woman, defended Sarah Palin
Old friend, male, verbally abused me in front of friends
Woman I admire--rarely contacts me
High school friend: bullied me
Another high school friend: ignorant, shallow political views (anti-Obama)
Still other high school friends: snooty, rude
Neighbor: desperate to show how knowledgeable he is--rude--arrogant--

Remembering No. 6 School in WNY, NJ

2009-10-18T05:49:00.000-07:00

Grammar School

Met a woman who went to No 6 school in West New York—brought back memories—of grammar school, now called grade school or elementary school—and my teachers--

Miss Smith: For the first day of kindergarten, my mother put some fancy clothing on me—with tricky buttons—worst happened: in school I had to go to the bathroom—Miss Smith, bless her, saw my agony & took me to the bathroom, untied my shorts—
She also left me back—told me that I was needed to help the new kids—but my mother, summoned to school, was told that I was left back because I was immature—Miss Smith had misinterpreted something that had happened & I didn’t know how to explain it to her--
Mrs Horowitz: Lovely woman—I knew how to count, and she called me The Number Boy—I once wrote on a pad on my desk, I AM SOUPERMAN – sic -- she called in another teacher, Miss Salinger, to see it—I didn’t know why—I thought I was in trouble—
Bernard Schlesinger said he would marry Ms Schlesinger—I said she’d be too hold—the teachers laughed-
Lucille Battaglia and I skipped—Miss Smith was called in to see the two kids who were skipping—she stared at me in amazement—I learned not long ago that Donald N, smart guy who like me went to Columbia, was also left back in kindergarten--

Miss Hendershot: We made a class newsletter--

Miss Borg: Once lined up all her class according to their supposed intelligence—I was in the middle—then she demoted me further down--last ranked, a very poor, mentally challenged boy, began to cry—even Miss B recognized she had done something wrong—that boy once tapped me on the shoulder, boasted that he had gotten three right on a spelling test—I said three WRONG? No, three right— I was shocked--

Miss Lomax: Angry, very homely woman—summoned my mother to school, complained to her that I was always fidgeting—
A painful memory: I was always getting humiliated in school (I had trouble paying attention) and actually prayed one night that my humiliations would end--

Miss Humphrey: Ideal teacher—warm and child-loving—we read Mr Popper’s Penguins, Huckleberry Finn

Miss Bergman: I was her pet—during the war years, I gave her difficult-to-get nylon stockings for Xmas—whole class was astonished—my mother had connections—
Brought in my cat one day, for show-your-pet day—cat pooped in the corner—When Miss B came in and asked where my cat was, all the kids giggled & pointed to the poop—(kids can be cruel)

Miss Parsek-Woods Angry woman, taught science—I got perfect grades, 100s, but she didn’t notice—so I stopped studying & now got average grades—she lit into me because my scores dropped—unfair!--very sexy woman, despite all—

Miss Thomas: My nemesis-- really had it in for me—once made me and Frank V stay after school to do some cleaning—and as punishment for something--then let Frank go early—as he was leaving, he gestured to me sympathetically: Sorry you have to stay—

Mrs. LaRosa – Gave us free periods all the time, so she could chat with her relative, Miss Cornell—shame on her--

Fame is the spur...

2009-09-24T18:17:00.000-07:00

Went to Hackensack library, asked young female librarian for Morningstar Mutual Funds--

I read your article, she said--

Which one? I asked--thinking: Wagner--

No, article about Value Line--where I had mentioned the Hackensack library--

Later, I told her she had made my day--

Wikipedia

2009-09-20T18:01:00.001-07:00

I admire Wikipedia--for encouraging amateurship--and encouraging voluntary work.

But there's something to be said for professionalism, too.

Recently I was proofreading and came upon the name "Sarah Vaughn." Was that right--or was it Vaughan?

I checked Wikipedia.

On the first page of her biography, the name was spelled both ways--twice.

reparations for blacks?

2009-08-31T19:33:00.000-07:00

Fred Reed writes a blog wherein he savages Prof Gates for talking about reparations to blacks for slavery. And makes all sorts of anti-black remarks.

Fred is either an idiot, a moron, or an imbecile--I'm not sure.

"I'm slow," he admits.

***

Anyway, the Jews got reparations from the Germans because the Nazis confiscated their property, their jewelry, their stores, their valuable paintings, whatever property they had. Maybe also because the Nazis killed 8,000,000 of them. Billions of dollars have been involved. Fair? I think so.

The Japanese interned in WW2 also got reparations. $20,000 apiece, I believe.

***
OK, let's imagine that black slaves in the US in the 19th century got paid. That they actually got money for their work instead of working for just food and a place to sleep.

They might have invested that money in real estate. Or in factories. Or opened stores.

Working for 40-50-60 years, you can make a lot of money--even if you're paid $10 a week.

AND YOUR KIDS CAN INHERIT THOSE THINGS.

But blacks over the years had nothing to inherit.

OK, Fred the imbecile-idiot-moron never owned a slave. But he benefits because the American economy benefited enormously from slave labor. How could countries compete with us when we didn't pay our black workers anything?

What if black workers had had money to buy houses? Or to go to college (assuming that they were allowed to)?

Black people in general would be much richer today --and more of them would be professionals. Fred might not have the cushy job he has today--he might be cleaning urinals in Omaha (a job perhaps not challenging his intelligence).

Blacks might own the house that Fred owns (assuming he owns one). It might have passed down from black family to black family. Or Fred might have paid much more for his house--and for everything else--if the demand for these things had been greater (because of blacks with money would have bid them up).

In other words, white people living right now benefited economically from black slavery in this country.

+++

I don't think reparations for blacks are practical. They might make prejudiced people like Fred even more virulent.

As for whether Fred is an idiot, an imbecile, or a moron, the truth is...

he is an imbecile who arrogantly believes that he is a moron.

What someone told me

2009-08-19T15:27:00.001-07:00

An older woman recently told me...

The Holocaust was an important message from God to all Jews everywhere.

The message was:

I do not exist.

In Praise of Israel

2009-08-19T15:26:00.000-07:00

In Praise of Israel

Israel is actually one of the finest nations on earth, despite the ignorant, poisonous attacks that appear in the letters pages of this newspaper.
Israel repeatedly has shown restraint against its enemies. Remember the scud missiles that Iraq launched day after day into Israel? Israel did nothing in retaliation. And for seven years, from 2001 to 2008, some 8,165 rockets and mortars from Gaza terrorists landed in civilian areas of southern Israel, killing 15 people and seriously injuring 275.
In Sderot, the terrorists’ targets included kindergartens, hospitals, schools, day-care centers, playgrounds, and homes.
On Sept. 3, 2007, Hamas terrorists launched a barrage of rockets timed to hit just when parents were taking their children to school and day-care centers for the fall term. It was, said the terrorists, a “gift” for the first day of school.
In Sderot, 94% of the children are reported to suffer from post-traumatic stress, along with nightmares, bed-wetting, and severe anxiety.
Nat Dreyfus of Olivebridge writes that the rockets were merely “fireworks.” What a contemptible comment.
Was the Israeli attack on Gaza disproportionate? Hamas had its infrastructure deliberately embedded in civilian hospitals, schools, and apartment houses. And Israelis even phoned the apartment houses sheltering terrorists, urging the civilians to leave. Hamas cold-bloodedly urged them to return – to make anti-Israel propaganda from civilian casualties.
Even so, Israel reported that 80% to 85% of the dead were combatants.
And Israel even made special efforts to help the wounded.
A “proportionate” military response was one that would persuade Hamas to stop sending rockets into Israel. The barrage has virtually stopped; so Israel clearly made a proportionate response.
Israel, by the way, gets a 2 from Freedom House, which monitors freedom in countries around the world – the range is from 1 (best) to 7 (worst). The U.S. and the United Kingdom get 1s. Libya, Sudan, and Syria get 7s. Iran and Saudi Arabia get 6s. Considered were (1) free speech and assembly, (2) fair and open trials, and (3) protection of religious freedoms.
As for political rights (free and fair elections, opposition parties being legal, minority participation), Israel gets a 1. Libya, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Syria get 7s.
Suzane Dunham of Woodstock, in a letter, objects that the number of dead, displaced, and homeless are mainly on the Palestinian side. The truth is that the Israelis are good at protecting their citizens – despite the rockets. Sderot built lots of bomb shelters and installed lots of air-raid sirens. And does she remember the terrorist bombings in Israel? It was mostly Israelis murdered on buses and in pizza parlors.
She praises me for acknowledging that Hamas was elected democratically. But Hamas remains a terrorist organization, devoted to “obliterating” Israel. It isn’t recognized by the U.S. or the European Union. In any case, Adolf Hitler was elected democratically. So was Sen. Joseph McCarthy and Gov. Theodore Bilbo. As the novelist E.M. Foster put it, two cheers for democracy.
Suzane Dunham also claims that Hamas has the right to “defend its citizens.” By launching rockets into Israel for seven straight years? Wasn’t that putting them in harm’s way?
She also argues that what we need in the Mideast is an agreement on policy. No, what we need is for Palestinians to accept the existence of Israel. When Egypt accepted Israel, Israel surrendered the entire Sinai peninsula. If Hamas seriously and sincerely accepted Israel’s existence, all sorts of accommodations would follow. Even the settlements issue could be worked out.
I think that Suzane Dunham is simply misinformed. But Nat Dreyfus is a true anti-Semite. To him, Israel is always in the wrong.
Dreyfus even brings up Hagana and the Stern gang from the 1940s! That justifies Arab terrorist attacks today?
He hints that Israel covets Gaza because of its natural gas reserves. I think that here we’re entering the realm of pure paranoia. Doesn’t he know that Israel voluntarily gave up Gaza in 2005? And even left its greenhouses intact – greenhouses that the Arabs stupidly proceeded to destroy, greenhouses that would have brought them prosperity instead of the poverty that their Hamas leaders exploit as propaganda.
Dreyfus suggests that I move to Israel. I suggest that he move to Iran. He and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad deserve each other.
Dreyfus might respond, triumphantly, that he’s Jewish. Proving, of course, that one can be Jewish and an anti-Semite.
After reading his letter, I felt that I needed a hot warm shower, to wash off the grime.
My theory is that confirmed anti-Semites are life’s losers, imprisoned in miserable marriages, stuck in joyless jobs, selling shoes in shoestores and waitressing in fast-food restaurants, with children who are bitter disappointments. Their profoundly unhappy lives lead them to look for outlets for their frustration and anger, and Jews — and Israel — are their usual targets.
But most Americans still support Israel. That says a lot about the basic decency and intelligence of most Americans.

letter defending Israel

2009-08-04T11:45:00.000-07:00

In Defense of Israel

The anti-Israel letter from William De Voe of Woodstock (July 30) puzzles me. Has he given up reading the Protocols of the Elders of Zion? Has his subscription to Henry Ford’s Dearborn Independent lapsed? Hasn’t he been able to translate Das Judenthum in der Musik?
I mean, using that wacko and weirdo “Jewish Voice for Peace” as a source for criticizing Israel! This is the nutty anti-Semitic group that claimed that Jews had never lived in the Holy Land, and that the First Temple and the Exodus from Egypt were myths. This is the group that has aligned itself with the American Nazi Party and a group that supports Hamas, the terrorist organization that rules Gaza.
Lee Kaplan, an investigative journalist, reports that Cecilie Surasky of Voice for Peace has been outted as a shill for anti-Semites and pro-Nazis.
As for our favorite schmuck, Bill Campion of Mt. Tremper, he writes and rants about how Israel “mercilessly” slaughtered Palestinians in Gaza. Doesn’t Campion know that it’s not nice to fire thousands of rockets from Gaza into cities in southern Israel? That the Israeli government was obliged to finally do something to defend its citizens? That the Israeli army warned the people of Gaza before the attack, but during the attack the Hamas terrorists used civilians as human shields? Anyway, since that well-warranted attack, there have been far fewer rockets launched into Israel. And now maybe the poor, suffering citizens of Gaza will vote Hamas out of office – and get on with the business of creating a viable state.
I wonder why Campion doesn’t rant and rave against such anti-democracies as North Korea…Iran…and Saudi Arabia. Could it be…is it possible…that he simply hates Jews?
Anyway, Israel has had Arabs in its Knesset and Arabs on its Supreme Court. The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs states that "Arab Israelis are citizens of Israel with equal rights" and that "The only legal distinction between Arab and Jewish citizens is not one of rights, but rather of civic duty. Since Israel's establishment, Arab citizens have been exempted from compulsory service in the Israel Defense Forces ."
I’ve been to Israel and have never witnessed any discrimination against non-Jews.
And, honestly, Campion, we Jews have never used the blood of Christian children to make matzoh. And, although it may come as a revelation to you, Alfred Dreyfus was innocent.

Warren Boroson
Chairman, Peace in the Mideast
Woodstock

Botstein

2009-08-03T20:02:00.000-07:00

I interviewed Leon Botstein recently--about the Wagner music festival at Bard.
Brilliant man.

At one point, I couldn't open the little box containing a new tape for my recorder.

He asked to look at it--and opened it by using a different tactic. Thinking outside the box.

Some people just have damn high IQs.

The Artist as Scoundrel

2009-08-03T20:01:00.000-07:00

Rainier Maria Rilke, one critic has written, “was not merely a selfish snob; he was also an anti-Semite, a coward, a psychic vampire, a crybaby. He was a son who refused to go to his dying father's bedside, a husband who exploited and abandoned his wife, a father who almost never saw his daughter and who even stole from a special fund for her education to pay for his first-class hotel rooms. He was a seducer of other men's wives, a pampered intellectual gigolo, and a virtual parody of the soulful artiste who deems himself superior to ordinary people because he is so tenderly sensitive, a delicate blossom easily punished by a passing breeze or sudden frost…. Once, in the midst of a love affair, Rilke actually persuaded the wronged husband to underwrite the rent for his errant wife's studio-love nest.”

Bertolt Brecht, according to critic Clive James, “emerged as an ice-cold, ruthless, self-serving egomaniac contemptuous of all decencies, and especially pitiless to the women who made the mistake of paying him allegiance. Even people who admired his work have given pen-portraits that turn the stomach. Yet somewhere in between the thoroughgoing con man Brecht was in real life and the hollow prophet he was as a man of the didactic theatre, Brecht was a great poet.”

Paypal Stinks!

2009-07-21T03:18:00.000-07:00

1--I recently tried to rejoin Paypal to buy something--but I was turned down--because my credit card number changed--
my conclusion: dumb outfit--I wound up sending cash to the seller ($12)

2--In my spam folder I've just found this--I'm afraid that it's a virus--I' m afraid to write back and say this sale is fraudulent--

Dear PayPal Member,

This email confirms that you have paid robertoelectronics (roberto211@aol.com) $439.00 USD using PayPal.

This credit card transaction will appear on your bill as "PAYPAL robertoelectronics*".

PayPal Shopping Cart Contents
Item Name: Nokia 8800 Brand New
Quantity: 1

Total: $410.00 USD

Cart Subtotal: $410.00 USD
Shipping Charge: $30.00 USD
Cart Total: $440.00 USD

Shipping Information

Shipping Info: Roberto Iank
540 Catherine Road
New York, NY 10018
United States
Address Status: Unconfirmed
If you haven't authorized this charge, click the link below to cancel the payment and get a full refund.
Dispute Transaction
Thank you for using PayPal!
The PayPal Team
Please do not reply to this e-mail. Mail sent to this address cannot be answered. For assistance, log in to your PayPal account and choose the "Help" link in the footer of any page.

PayPal Email ID PP120

Letter to the Editor

2009-07-19T02:50:00.000-07:00

In Praise of Two Ladies

Kudos to the “two ladies” who began waving Israeli flags in the midst of an anti-Israeli demonstration group on the Village Green! About time people stood up for Israel against ignorant and biased anti-semites.
The person who wrote about these two heroines, Bill Campion, says “there’s no doubt” that if Palestinians did that in Israel they would have been jailed or their houses bulldozed. Actually, everyone in Israel, Arabs included, has the right of free speech; and the only houses the Israelis are bulldozing are those where terrorist/murderers lived (or the houses of Jews in settlements on disputed land). The Greeks had a word for Bill Campion: shmuck.
In a really weird, incoherent letter, full of rants about “Zionists,” Phil Sullivan writes: If former congresswoman Cynthia McKinney says something, he accepts it as true.
Actually, McKinney must have crawled out from under a rock. She claimed that George W. Bush knew about 9/11 before it happened—but did nothing so that his father could make a lot of money in the stocks of defense companies! She claimed that Al Gore’s “Negro tolerance level has never been too high.” (He actually had a black campaign manager.) She has repeatedly made anti-semitic remarks. No wonder Phil Sullivan admires her!
She puts me in mind of another contemptible politician: Mississippi Governor (and later Senator) Theodore Bilbo (1877-1947), a proud member of the Ku Klux Klan. He called Clare Booth Luce a “nigger lover,” praised Hitler again and again, and said that whites “were justified in going to any extreme to keep the nigger from voting.” He blocked anti-lynching legislation, declaring, memorably, “If you succeed in the passage of this bill, you will open the floodgates of hell in the South. Raping, mobbing, lynching, race riots, and crime will be increased a thousand-fold; and upon your garments and the garments of those who are responsible for the passage of the measure will be the blood of the raped and outraged daughters of Dixie, as well as the blood of the perpetrators of these crimes that the red-blooded Anglo-Saxon White Southern men will not tolerate.”
One has to reach back to Theodore Bilbo to find another American politician as loathsome as Cynthia McKinney.

Warren Boroson
Chairman, Peace in the Mideast
Woodstock

Some Women Are Horrors

2009-07-14T06:33:00.000-07:00

Carol is married to an old friend of mine.
We used to play bridge together--she and her husband, me, and a friend of mine.
Then I discovered that Carol was cheating. When she was my partner, she would deliberately lose--so her husband would win!
When I mentioned my suspicion to my partner, she said, Carol ALWAYS does that.

So I stopped playing bridge with them. And my friendship with Carol's husband ended.

***

I was in Nyack, in a bookstore with an old friend of mine, Suzanne.

Carol came in.

Why are you in Nyack? she asked.

I explained: Suzanne lives in Chappaqua, I live in Hackensack, and this is equidistant. So we meet here occasionally.

Bt she kept demanding an explanation.

Later I figured out that she was loudly implying that this was an assignation.

What a horror she is.

Mr. Dooley on Why Jews Are in Business

2009-07-14T06:32:00.000-07:00

Writing in the Boston Globe (Nov.16, 1902), Finley Peter Dunne (1867-1936) considered the question of Jews, money, and business -- writing as the Irishman, Mr. Dooley.

'Tis ye'er idee that ivry Jew is a rich man. Maybe e're right. Maybe all thim Jews that lives down in Canal sthreet, twinty in a room, is Rothschilds....

Th' reason th' Jews is all in business is because they'se nawthin' else f'r them to do....

They cudden't be sojers or pollyticians or lawyers or judges. But they'se wan pursoot where prejudice has no hand. Whin a man wants to borrow money he niver inquires about th' charackter or religion iv th' fellow he touches. ... and not paying money back to a Jew is Christyan varchue....

I.F. Stone

2009-07-06T07:48:00.000-07:00

New bio of him--I met him once, in Ralph Ginzburg's office--
I said that US pro-Russia people in the 1930s should have abandoned Russia when it signed a non-aggression pact with Germany--as I recall, he disagreed--perhaps he said that they could have justifiably continued siding with Russia--very pleasant, lively person--

Wrenching Scene

2009-06-27T17:02:00.000-07:00

Testament, a film with Jane Alexander about how a nuclear war impinges a California town, was a bit too slow and relaxed, but powerful and affecting. One scene, where Jane looks frantically for a child's teddy bear, was overwhelming.

Medical Economics

2009-06-23T00:20:00.000-07:00

Thinking about the magazine for doctors, where I once (actually, twice) worked--

I met some terrific people there--Tom Bentz, the late Al Vogl, Jo
Dempsey-- There's an alumni group I've joined, and I want to invite others to join--Jeff Burger, Jane See White, Kathy Drake--

I remember the contests I ran via computer--do sharks lay eggs?

The time I was supposed to have a footrace with a touing woman who hadbeen on thetrack team in her school--Rick Ballad told me, it was the dumbest thing I ever did--until he saw me run!

I remember the DO--the demented one--

Paul Giddings telling me: Don't make --- any nuttier than he already is.

That amazing editor, the late R. Craigin Lewis--

Good people, bad people--

Where is Paul Giddings? I admired him-- and Jo Dempsey--

Jo and I had a bet, and I won--she was to buy me lunch in the cafeteria--I went there in the AM and changed the menu on the wall to offer Lobster...$25-- so, with Jo nexto me, I ordered the lobster--she stared at the menu in utter shock--

Nell Hartagensis: She was cold, sitting in the cafeteria--I took off my jacket and put it around her shoulders--someone from the kitchen came out and told me I had to wear my jacket-- I explained-- person said she'd take care of it, went to kitchen, came back with kitchen towels--which she draped over Nell's shoulders--
So people came in and kept asking Nell, why those towels? She couldn't answer, she was laughing so hard--

Bad Dreams

2009-06-22T00:08:00.000-07:00

I was working at a magazine--and the editor didn't like my work and I was afraid of being fired--actually, I was not working hard--I was bored--it was actually a magazine I had worked for, and the editor really did fire me--

Feeling down--not involved in anything--should write the articles I'm scheduled to write--disgusted with myself for misplacing a prescription--also, having a health problem--and I like to think of myself as unusually healthy--also, not playing tennis anywhere--have to find a group--also, some old friends haven't been friendly of late--

Looking forward to growing a beard--one reason: so I don't cut myself shaving while taking anticoagulants--

Facebook

2009-06-14T03:11:00.000-07:00

A huge disappointment. I didn't know that my "friends" were so boring, so full of themselves, so trivia-minded.

It's raining.
Getting root canal today.
A good new band.

They don't read, they don't comment on news events, they're uncultured.

If we met in person, I could change the subject. Or walk away.

I was too uncritical in "choosing" my friends. One was someone I had once interviewed for a newspaper article--because she was so poverty-stricken.

And some people go on and on! People I barely know. There's one person I no longer have anything to do with--since she sailed into me for criticizing that muttonhead, Sarah Pailin. How do I get rid of her--my former friend?

I should have been more choosey of my friends.

I wish I could start again--just choosing intelligent people like Miriam, Shoshana, and the like.

Screw Target!

2009-06-09T13:53:00.000-07:00

I went to the new Whole Foods in the Bergen Center today, had lunch. Then walked over to Target, also in the shopping center, bought a wire bookcase, 40 pounds of birdseed, cards, 2 cans of soup, a cup of coffee.

A sign said that the cart I was using was for use in the parking lot only.

I couldn't wheel the cart past the parking lot! The wheels stopped spinning! Even on the roadway!

I had to carry all my stuff a few blocks over to Whole Foods--exhausting--

I wonder how much the executives at Target get paid to come up with such stupid ideas--

No wonder I prefer Walmart!

Borg and Hackensack Hospital

2009-06-08T00:11:00.000-07:00

Crappy Piece of Journalism

Did you happen to see the article below in the Times in May?
Shocking. Article reads like a public relations plant. And the quotes from Borg! Any decent copyeditor would have red-pencilled such drivel.
Meanwhile, where are the names of the miscreants from Hackensack Hospital? Who was the administrator? Who were the hospital executives?
Is Stephanie Clifford an intern just starting out, and with little or no journalism experience?
And the lead! Written by someone who seems to be brain-dead.
I’m glad for the correction—pointing out that an error was made by Borg himself.
But who says no matters involving the paper were ever formally presented to the board? Who’s the source? Jennifer Borg?
A really shameful piece of journalism. I would have expected it of a third-rate newspaper like the Bergen Record but not the Times. (By the way, I was dismissed by the Record years ago—unfairly.)
*********
A Battle With a New Jersey Newspaper Backfires

By STEPHANIE CLIFFORD
Published: May 3, 2009
When fighting with a media mogul, institutions would be well-advised to avoid using that mogul’s newspaper as a battleground, a hospital in New Jersey learned last week.
On April 25, The Record, a newspaper owned by the North Jersey Media Group, was preparing to run a controversial article the next day detailing the powerful connections of some members of the board at the Hackensack University Medical Center.
That afternoon, the hospital struck back. An administrator called an advertising sales representative, saying the hospital was removing its ads from the media group’s Web sites, canceling its one-year online advertising contract with The Record and removing ads from several local papers. The article ran that Sunday anyway. Later in the week, hospital executives told The Record’s distribution staff that the paper could no longer be sold at the hospital’s gift shops or newspaper boxes.
“It’s pretty obvious they thought they were going to hurt us very, very badly,” said Malcolm A. Borg, chairman of the North Jersey Media Group.
On Friday, when an article about the hospital’s reaction was published, Mr. Borg said he received apologetic phone calls from some members of the medical center’s board. (Mr. Borg’s daughter, the general counsel for the media group, is on the hospital board; however, no matters involving the paper were ever formally presented to the board.)
By Friday afternoon, the hospital had released a statement undoing its decision. In response to a reporter’s inquiry to a hospital spokeswoman, a public relations firm sent an e-mail statement saying the board and administrators “agreed to reverse the decision regarding The Record.”
It also said, “We apologize to our patients and our staff for any inconvenience, and we apologize to The Record.” Still, Mr. Borg said he had not yet heard from any hospital representatives as of Friday about resuming the advertising.
“If the hospital administration doesn’t like the fact that we are in there and writing stories about the institution that are not flattering, because it involves certain members of the board and their interlocking relationships and so forth, I think the public has a right to know that, and if we find out, we’re going to print it,” Mr. Borg said.
STEPHANIE CLIFFORD
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: May 15, 2009  An article on May 4 about a dispute between the Hackensack University Medical Center and The Record, a newspaper owned by the North Jersey Media Group, using information from Malcolm Borg, the chairman of the group, overstated the connection of his daughter to the dispute. Jennifer Borg is the general counsel for the media group and is also on the medical center’s board. But as a member of the board, she did not recuse herself from “most decisions having to do with the paper” because no matters involving the paper were ever formally presented to the board.

New Club

2009-06-07T18:51:00.001-07:00

We're starting a new social group in Woodstock--to counteract the anti-Israel group that exists--

email: PeaceMidEast@gmail.com

Keeping Busy

2009-06-06T01:24:00.000-07:00

I've arranged to teach courses on old singers at the YJCC in Washington Township, William Patterson University, the Institute of New Dimensions, and the Senior Center in Midland Park. Perhaps also, in the fall, at the County College of Morris. Also, a class on Puccini for a private group. I'll also be giving a talk on the music of Mendelssohn at the social club I belong to--a subject I have to research.

I'm writing an article on Wagner and anti-semitism. And a profile of Bill Lippman, a money manager for Franklin group.

When I have time, I'll finish writing a short book on how to invest--and try to circulate it as an e-book.

I'm not looking forward to fall and cold weather, but I AM looking forward to teaching these classes.

Books I'm reading: biographies of Puccini and Wagner; a biography of Adelina Patti.

Quest Diagnostics

2009-06-05T07:35:00.000-07:00

Had a 10am appointment at QD for a blood test--arrived at 955am--crowded room-probably because of overbooking--signed in--waited 20 minutes, left--wrote RUDE AND INCOMPETENT in sign-in book--never spoke to a human being in making the appointment or after I arrived--

I'll complain to my doctor--and go to another place--

fortunately, I live across the street & didn't waste all that much time going there or coming back--glad I didn't have to drive there, didn't have to take off from work--unlike other patients there--

Good joke!

2009-05-17T01:47:00.000-07:00

Young man decides to enter a monastery.

He agrees to abide by a vow of silence.

The rules: Every 10 years, he is allowed to say two words.

******

Ten years go by.

A monk comes over to him and asks:

What are your two words?

Fellow says: BED HARD!

*******
Another ten years go by.

Monk asks him: What are your two words?

Fellow replies: FOOD COLD!

*******

Another ten years go by.

The monk asks: What are your two words?

Fellow answers: I QUIT!

Replies the monk:

Well, I'm not surprised! Ever since you got here, all you've done is

bitch bitch bitch!

Musical NOTES

2009-05-15T00:06:00.001-07:00

From a book by Harold Schonberg, former chief music critic of the NYTimes...

Birgit Nilsson:
In filling out her tax form, she listed Rudolf Bing, the Met’s director, as a dependent
At a darkly lit von Karajan Wagner rehearsal, she put on a miner’s cap with a light on it
How to sing Isolde: She told a young singer, get a comfortable pair of shoes

Lilian Nordica was American, her real name was Lilly Norton—married 3 times, once to a balloonist who attempted a channel crossing—never heard of again—she once told the Boston Symphony that it played like a band from Kalamazoo—

Lili Lehmann loudly said to Nordica, in 1894, when Nordica went over to pay her respects—Nordica had just “triumphed” at Bayreuth—No, my dear, I am not taking any pupils this season

Fremsted and Gadski lost no love—Fremsted once came off stage with blood on her arm—Brunhilde’s breastplate had cut her—she insisted on taking her curtain call without dressing the wound—

Mrs Hannah Stanhope—woman Caruso allegedly pinched in 1906—in the monkey house of the Central Park Zoo—he spent time in jail!

Feb. 26, 1938, Martinelli collapsed on stage after eating crab meat--singing Celeste Aida—in 1897, Armand Castelmary died in the arms of Jan de Reszke during a performance of Martha

Emma Eames was said to be a cold singer—but she once slapped contralto katharine senger-battaque during a performance of lohengrin—I did not resent it, she told the press—I was really surprised and delighted to see ANY evidence of emotion in Madame Eames—

Only 2 singers had their own dressing room—number 15---flagstad and farrar—

Farrar said to Toscanini, I am the star here
Madame, there are only stars in heaven, Toscanini famously said--
The public pays to see my face not your back, she replied

Caruso saw Schumann-heink in a restaurant attacking a huge steak—are you having that steak alone, tina?
Ach nein, mit soup und spaghetti und potatoes und vegetables…

Recording Butterfly, singing a duet with Caruso, who had imbibed a bottle of wine, Ferrar supposedly sang ‘he had a highball’ instead of ‘si per la vita’—
Schonberg listened to the recording—yes, she had clearly sung, he had a highball—
Caruso is supposed to have sung, I had two—
But Schonberg says he didn’t

Johann Quantz, a contemporary musician, says Farinelli, the castrato, could hold a note for a full minute—Carlo Broschi 1705-82 was Farinelli’s real name— Antonio Paoli, a 20th century tenor, could hold a note for 25 seconds, which is impressive enough--

“In over 50 years of exposure to great singing I never heard a female voice that equaled Ponselle’s.”--Schonberg

Dealing with a Blowhard

2009-05-10T10:58:00.000-07:00

There's a blowhard who takes my music class--named Raoul Gersten.
Gives his opinion on everything--talks and talks. His favorite singer, he says, is Bjoerling--and he says it again and again!
Someone asks a question, and I answer it--and Raoul answers it again!
He used to run the music group, so I have been courteous to him--
But he is such a rude blowhard! So desperate to show off his meager knowledge!

Book Review on Bioterrorism

2009-05-08T22:50:00.000-07:00

http://www.jstandard.com/index.php/content/item/a_case_of_bioterrorism/8135

Recession Consequence

2009-05-01T02:36:00.000-07:00

1--Banks are closing down branches--it's hard now for me to find a nearby convenient branch of Bank of America
2--Gas stations give a discount if you pay cash
3--I get more cash now from the bank, to pat cash for gas--
4--but I have trouble finding a bank!
5--the other day, I found myself with $7 in cash & needed $10 to play tennis--no Bank of A nearby & I had an appointment--so I went to another bank and spent $2 to get $60--

Pol Plancon and the Cow

2009-04-24T23:39:00.000-07:00

I had a dim memory that the bass, Pol Plancon, had been with the Met opera in San Francisco during the 1906 earthquake--and sleeping by the river, had awakened when a cow nuzzled him. He then said to Emma Eames, the soprano, Emma, what is this terrible beast?

To find he source, I Googled the key words. And there was the source: me. (I had copied it from some book.)

***

Always a danger showing a prepub copy to someone. David Mintz, of Tofutti fame, treated my prepub ms as advertising copy--and tried to re-write it. Yuck.

***

Shocked and unhappy that an old enemy of mine seems to have had a successful career. Well, on the surface she did.

***

Having friends, it seems, helps you live longer. But having friends may mean that you're an outgoing, warm, pleasant person--type B rather than type a. THAT may account for any longevity.

***

"Milk," the film, wasn't as depressing as I had feared. but some sex scenes turned me off.

***

I've given up watching In Therapy. For the shrink to have fallen for that shallow young woman was incredible--and disgusting.

***

A 10-year-old documentary on black singers, Aida & Her Sisters, was mesmerizing. (Simon Estes has some voice!) How dispiriting, that many black singers despaired of ever succeeding in the classical music world. Miles Davis, who went to Juilliard, gave up on the classical world and went into jazz.

***

I should finish the little book I've started writing, about investing. Nothing new will be in it, but the advice will be sound, the writing lively. But first I've got to write a piece about the anthrax killings, Wagner and anti-semitism, and prepare some music lectures.

***

Music lectures: The Great Contraltos, Bass Notes, A Few Wonderful, All-But-Forgotten Singers (Bonci, Schoene, Hayes, Onegin, DeVries). Prokofiev.

***

Why do contraltos have pleasant personalities? Too small a sample to really generalize, but perhaps...they weren't stars...they didn't face much competition....they were "outsiders." Certainly true of Louise Homer and Kathleen Ferrier and Marion Anderson.

***

Something Else to Worry About

2009-04-23T06:57:00.001-07:00

"By 2100, at the current rate of global warming, the pythons [in Florida] could reach New York City."

-- The New Yorker, April 20, 2009

Carmina Burana

2009-04-21T02:36:00.000-07:00

Where did I read that Carl Orff was pro-Nazi? And that he had agreed to re-write Mendelssohn's
works, to substitute his compositions for those of a genetic Jew?

Surprised to read, yesterday, that Maria Jeritza, the beautiful opera singer, started a pro-Nazi group years ago in Hollywood.

The Israel Lobby

2009-04-19T08:21:00.000-07:00

Response to a letter in the Woodstock Times:

So, Fred Nagel thinks that the Israel lobby is behind all the bad things
that have ever happened in the world! Does he also believe that Jews kipnap
Christian children and use their blood in making matzoh? How about the odeur Judaica?
And what about the Jews warned to stay away from the World trade Center on 9/11...and their responsibility for the
sinking ofthe Lusitania....and the crash of 1929? and the Panic of
1922?
And what about those other international conspiracies? SMERSH? The
Tri-Lateral Commission? The Masons? The Jesuits? The Comintern? The
Hominterm (homosexuals)? Fu Manchu?
You think maybe Fred Nagel should read Richard Hofstadter's "Paranoid Style in
American Politics"?

Warren Boroson

Margarete Matzenauer

2009-04-17T21:51:00.001-07:00

She married her chauffeur--who left her to become a chauffeur again--in 1922, she asked him to return because she was expecting--he said no--opera singers, he said, live on skim milk and applause--

Fox's Biased Coverage

2009-04-15T01:51:00.000-07:00

Why doesn't the FCC take away Fox News's license?

Apparently because Fox is a cable channel, not a broadcast channel.

But couldn't a govt agency go after it for false advertising? Fair and balanced?

New Restaurant

2009-04-13T04:11:00.001-07:00

The waitress said, we're all out of that wine, why don't you try this other wine? It's very good--

But it was more expensive--

It WAS very good--

But I wonder: Does the waitress ALWAYS say "we're out of that wine" to push a more expensive wine?

When I got the bill, it seemed high--and there was no breakdown of the charges--that has never happened to me before--I should have asked for a breakdown, but I tend to be timid--

I've sometimes ordered cabernet sauvignon and gotten a wine that doesn't taste like it--any old red--

I remember, with anger, ordering a drink when I was young, and getting a drink without any alcohol--

---

Some restaurants, I've noticed, have waiters/waitresses who interrupt and say, sorry to interrupt but...
I'm going to say: Don't be sorry to interrupt--just don't interrupt--

Jews who are one-sidedly anti-Israel

2009-04-13T04:05:00.000-07:00

THE WOODSTOCK TIMES PUBLISHED MY LETTER BUT TOOK OUT TARAK KAUFF'S NAME!

In response to a letter from a Jew calling me stupid for arguing that anti-Israel people are mostly anti-Semites:

Why Some Jews Are Anti-Israel

To the Editor:

In a shallow letter (April 9) full of misspellings, wrong punctuation, and defective grammar, Tarak Kauff brings up an interesting question. Why are certain Jews (like Kauff himself) one-sidedly anti-Israel?
After all, one almost certainly must be a Jew-hater not to acknowledge that Israel has been seeking peace, giving in to demand after demand from the Arabs, while the Arabs (like that terrorist group known as Hamas) have been determined to eradicate Israel.
Some Jews, undeniably, are one-sidedly anti-Israel. Just as some blacks oppose affirmative action. (Isn’t “Uncle Toms” the word for them?)
Are people like Kauff “self-hating” Jews? Possibly they do “identify with the aggressor,” as Anna Freud put it. But another reasonable explanation is that these Jews are ashamed of being Jewish; they have bought into the vicious stereotypes about Jews, and are bent on proving that they don’t carry all the stigmata of being Jewish. “How can I be a vulgar Jew if I criticize Israel?” Like that young member of the American Nazi party who, years ago, upon being exposed by The New York Times as being Jewish, promptly killed himself.
Still another explanation: These Jews are desperate for attention, to be noticed. I’m beginning to think that getting attention is one of the great human needs, along with food and shelter. Getting attention boosts a person’s self-esteem; it suggests that someone really isn’t one of life’s miserable losers. And for a Jew to one-sidedly criticize Israel is almost guaranteed to get attention, especially if the critic writes to a newspaper and announces that he is Jewish.
Please don’t misunderstand. I am not suggesting that Kauff is a self-hating Jew, or a Jew ashamed of being Jewish, or even a posturing, attention-getting Jew.
He’s that exceedingly rare creature, that anomaly, that lusus naturae…the really dumb Jew.

Mary Garden Dazzled the Eye & Pained the Ear

2009-04-06T08:43:00.000-07:00

Mary Garden 1874-1987

Born in Scotland, came to US as a child
Listening to a radio interview with her, in 1940: She sounds pretentious—enunciating like Liza Dolittle via Henry Higgins—the interviewer dares to ask about the poor reviews she received: she pays no attention to critics, just to the public, is her reply—besides, a singer’s personality and acting are what really count—in the past, she admitted she was no great singer—though she had a pretty voice, and her record of singing of At Dawning is pleasant—
A critic who saw her in Thais wrote that she “dazzled the eye and pained the ear.”

She’s famous for singing Melisande (she was a friend of Debussy’s) and Salome—the latter in a very sexy version. She was accused of having had a child out of wedlock when she was young, but it seems dubious—she seemed to be fairly ignorant about sex. She once did one of the wackiest things any opera singer ever did: Donned a man’s clothes and tried to enlist in the army! All in all, she was cute and attractive—and a slight singer who made the most of her meager talent.

A biography by Michael T.R.B. Turnbull (1997) makes hash of a previous work, MG’s autobiography written with Louis Biancolli—“Mary’s distortion of the facts stemmed from an innate tendency to exaggerate which, in combination with her failure to keep accurate records, her later highly developed skill in managing the media, and the onset of senile dementia around 1945, led to the confusion or transposition of dates, events, feelings and even people.” P 1

47
famous story:

At a party, both Melba and Garden sang—during a dinner later, Melba said loudly, What a poor concert this would have been if I hadn’t been singing!’ When someone tried to mollify Garden, she shrugged it off: She was accustomed to Melba’s bad manners.

89
She was opposed to women getting the vote. “Woman is made to be loved, not to vote.”

Maeterlink was angry that Debussy chose Mary to play Melisande—instead of a friend of his, Georgette Leblanc, whose voice has been described as “pitiable”—he actually went to his home and told his wife he had come to thrash Debussy with his cane—(when Sam Goldwyn met him ears later, he reported that Maeterlink was indifferent to music)

P 109: “It was one night in mid-February 1913 in Philadelphia … Nineteen-year-old Helen Newby… committed suicide because she was unable to see Mary.” Daughter of a wealhy tycoon, she shot herself in the head on the lawn of her family’s house after Mary declined to give her an interview. “Hidden in the bosom of her dress was a picture of her adored Mary.”

114
She studied German, hoping to sing Wagner—but said she couldn’t sing opposite a fat German tenor—“Most German tenors are fat, aren’t they?”

116
A critic wrote of her Louise: “It is to the credit of the great dramatic power of this woman that, although her singing has long been a bad joke, her personation of Louise is still able to command the intense interest of great audiences by the sincerity and power with which she throws herself into it.”
119
During WW1 she worked as a Red Cross nurse—and on Nov 16 1914, wearing a uniform, she tried to enlist in the French army—she had a “somewhat effeminate bearing”—was she a German spy in disguise?—before the youngster could be examined, Mary Garden tearfully confessed—apparently she had been “seized by a whirlwind of patriotism”—later she defended herself: “I could fight as well as any man if they would only let me. I have never failed to subdue every man I have met so far.”

193
In 1946 she was hired to teach French to Beverly Sills—Sills: “Charming, she wasn’t. Mary Garden often struck me as the meanest woman I’d ever met.” She was “absolutely awful about allowing me room for a single creative thought….”

128
She made a silent film in 1917 of Thais for Sam Goldwyn – in Fort Lee. But studio people, Goldwyn reported, said she was “acting all over the place.”
She was enraged when she saw the rushes—she said to the playwright, Margaret Mayo, “Did you see the way they made me die? Imagine a saint dying like that!”
Mayo replied “in a tone of studied insolence: ‘You would have a hard time, Miss Garden, proving to anyone that you were a saint.’”
Goldwyn later came upon her, “weeping hysterically. ‘Oh,’ said she, ‘that terrible woman! Have you heard what she just said to me?’”
(Goldwyn seems like a smart fellow, by the way.)

133
“When you leave the opera house, you are lonesome with your triumphs.”

138
A female associate of hers said Mary liked to talk about erotic matters—but “this sophisticated woman was actually as ignorant of most facts of life as a little girl.”

159
A cop reported on her performance of Salome in Chicago. “Salome is OK. The show was better than gthe movies and he costumes were up to snuff. Regarding Miss Garden in her veil dance, wehave sween worse right on Second Avenue. It was a nifty dance, but it was kind of sad- - John the Baptist being beheaded.”

166
Her performance of At Dawning was the only one of her records she could bear to hear played.

Standing by a window with Debussy, she killed a couple of flies. He objected to her cruelty and tears rolled down his cheeks.

The women of America, she said, made her career. When they took their husbands to see Thais or Salome and saw that she was nearly nude, they took the opera glasses away from their wives and kept them all evening. They learned “that opera could be made interesting.”

194
She once said that she had never loved anyone of the opposite sex.

198
Later in life she said that Mario Lanza had a gorgeous voice—he should to to Europe and study—re Callas, she said, “You know, she is a great actress, she is a great singer, but she acts on impulse. That’s very dangerous.”

Opera Singer Meets Midget

2009-03-30T01:57:00.000-07:00

On one occasion Florence Easton was engaged to sing the title role in Madama Butterfly in Washington, D.C., a place celebrated for the strictest child labor laws of any city in the country. The child ‘Trouble’ (Butterfly's son who appears only in the last act), is always recruited locally, and a resourceful stage manager from somewhere produced a midget. Nobody told Mme. Easton, lest she be a bit squeamish. It is customary for the child playing Trouble to be introduced to the soprano at the first intermission to get him (more often her) accustomed to the Japanese costume and makeup. Mme. Easton asked the traditional three questions:
"Would you like to go to the bathroom?" - "No".
"Would you like some chocolate?" - "No".
"How old are you?" - "Forty two" the little fellow piped up.

But this was nothing to Easton¹s confusion in the last act. When she pressed him to her ample bosom he didn¹t want to let go.

From Wikipedia's entry on Florence Easton

Notes on Lotte Lehmann

2009-03-29T02:50:00.000-07:00

Lehmann

Music critics have loved her--Toscanini called her the greatest artist in the world—Richard Strauss said her singing moved the stars—and that’s what’s engraved on her tombstone--
She was a smart, outspoken, funny and admirable woman—did everything from having lunch with Hermann Goering (there’s a biography of her called She Never Sang for Hitler) to having a wild affair with Toscanini—while both were married—

When he was 83, Toscanini actually made advances at her—“oh if only we can be alone!” She wrote with 3 exclamation points: “Can you imagine??? 83???”

She possessed a beautiful voice, an expressive voice, and she was an intelligent actress—but as a singer, she sang from the heart, and sometimes didn’t follow the score to the letter—she was once walking on the beach in Calif. with Schwarzkopf, and S, who was scrupulous in following the score, said, Did you enjoy singing? Of course! said Lehmann—I didn’t, said S—I could tell, Elizabeth, said Lehmann—

Germans call not following the score faithfully “swimming”—Strauss himself said, “I’d rather have Lehmann swim through my opera in that inspired way of hers than have anyone else, however precise.” (She had many famous friends—besides Strauss, Bruno Walter)

Born in Germany. As a youngster, she was expelled from music school—she hadn’t worked hard--the headmistress wrote her a long and nasty letter—none of my pupils has ever been a disappointment as you have—urged her to take up a more “practical” line of work”—Lotte kept the letter—

Later, when she had become famous, Goering wanted her to stay in Germany and sing there exclusively—and she refused—Hitler was reportedly enraged and forbade her to ever come to Germany again—
But she was so outspoken that she wrote: Of one thing I am certain: had I been foolish enough to stay in Germany I should have ended up in a concentration camp—by the way her husband’s children by a previous wife were Jewish, and Lotte helped them escape from Germany---

She was almost 46 when she made her Met opera debut—in 1934--

After retiring, she became a teacher—and among her pupils were Marilyn Horne, Jeanette MacDonald, Grace Bumbry, Eleanor Steber, Rose Bampton.

She also made a movie—Big City, with Margaret O’Brien, Danny Thomas, Robert Preston, George Murphy—I can’t get a copy of it, but here’s a song she sings in it (God bless America)—I used to think that Kate Smith rendition was incomparable, but I begin to like Lotte Lehmann’s version more and more—

She and Flagstad didn’t hit it off, altho sometimes they sang together—she praised Flagstad, but said her singing “fails to touch the heart”—
Another singer she didn’t get along with was Maria Jeritza, but no one got along with her—the Terror of Tenors--later, when the were both retired, they were on the radio pleasantly sharing memories—I’d love to hear that conversation—

She wasn’t all that competitive—said one singer sang Turandot better than she did—and after hearing Rosa Ponselle, she went outside to weep onthe stairs-- an admirer of hers—a Lehmanniac--came up and gushed about Lotte’s performance last week—her reply: “How can you say things like that when you have just heard ponselle sing?”

She had a sense of humor. At a party she gave two music critics gifts—a pot of honey and a pen, and a pair of rose-colored glasses--

She was a bit eccentric—Dame Judith Anderson, the actress, visited her and was surprised to see her take a teacake and break crumbs on her head—reason: a bluejay promptly came down and began eating the crumbs off her head—opera singers are sometimes strange—Mary Garden dressed as a man and tried to join the army--

She’s most famous for her portrayal of the aging countess in Rosenkavalier, the Marshallin—

By the way, she was not related to Lili Lehmann—who could have been her grandmother—

Lauritz Melchior sang with her often, and he said, you couldn’t know her without falling in love with her—

The New Dentist

2009-03-29T02:10:00.000-07:00

A line kept reverberating in my head:
"There are two patients ahead of you."
That's what a dental assistant told me as I waited to see my new dentist. My appointment was at 115pm, and in the waiting room was a meeting--of future dental hygienists. I was asked to sit outside, on the steps, until the dentist could see me. Two patients were supposedly ahead of me.
But I didn't see any patients leave. And where were they? I now see that it was a lie. To make me be patient--and to convey the notion that the dentist was very busy.

It had been a long time before I could get an appointment with Dentist One. My old dentist, who had retired, had recommended him, and Dentist One, an elderly fellow, introduced himself to me before I went in for my appointment. I figured this dentist was busy.
Strange: There were five or six dental assistants there, and they STARED at me. Why? Because, it occurred to me later, they hadn't seen a real patient in a long time. (There WAS a patient after me, though.)
The dentist who had retired later told me that a young dentist had just purchased the practice from Dentist One.
And it was the young dentist who saw me! No explanation why I wasn't seeing Dentist One.
The hygienist cleaned my teeth for around a half-hour, going way beneath my gums. (I have had regular cleanings with my former dentist.) She also said I needed two more visits--one to finish up my left side, one for my right.
And the young dentist found three cavities on the x-rays of my teeth.

I've had a prior experience of dealing with a dentist who bought a practice. Very expensive--she was trying to quickly pay off her purchase. She capped almost all my teeth. And when I asked her what it would cost, she never told me. The bill turned out to be over $3,000.

I suspect that this dentist is also quickly trying to pay off his purchase..

The bill for the visit, including xrays, was around $350.

I canceled my next appointment. I'll write & ask for the office to send me the xrays I paid for.

I need a new dentist.

POST SCRIPT: I wrote to this dentist, asking for my x-rays, and got them--

Lehmann

2009-03-24T16:35:00.000-07:00

I bought a CD of Lotte Lehmann giving singing lessons in 1961--at the age of 73--sort of singing the Marshallin's monologue from Rosenkavalier--screeching, she called it--(Strauss said she was the best Marshallin)

Then I found a performance she gave when she was young!

On Thurs, in a vocal music course I teach, I'll play the film, then the magical performance she gave 40 years before--

***

I'm excited about giving a talk about contraltos--today I heard Clara Butt--wow! an English woman 6 feet 2 with a powerful voice--what other great contraltos have there been? Louise Homer, Schumann-Heink, Podnes, Anderson...
and my favorite, Kathleen Ferrier--

Here's a list from Wikipedia--

Marietta Alboni (1826–1894)
Marian Anderson (1897–1993)
Irina Arkhipova (1925–)
Eula Beal (1919–2008)
Marianne Brandt (1842–1921)
Muriel Brunskill (1899–1980)
Clara Butt (1872–1936)
Lili Chookasian (1921–)
Belle Cole (1845–1905)
Kathleen Ferrier (1912–1953)
Maureen Forrester (1930–)
Louise Homer (1871–1947)
Gisela Litz (1922–)
Louise Kirkby Lunn (1873–1930)
Sigrid Onegin (1889–1943)
Ewa Podleś (1952–)
Marie Powers (1902–1973)
Ernestine Schumann-Heink (1861–1936)
Annice Sidwells (1902–2001)
Nathalie Stutzmann (1965–)
Vittoria Tesi (1700–1775)

Letter Re Israel

2009-03-23T08:52:00.000-07:00

Letter to the Editor of the Woodstock Times

Regarding the recent spate of anti-Israel letters in this newspaper: It's absurd to claim that all anti-Israel people are really Jew-haters.
Only 99.73% are.

I mean, if you think that Israel has a right to exist, you can understand why its government felt obliged to attack a place that has hurled thousands of rockets into its civilian areas. If there have been relatively few civilian deaths in Israel as a result of those rockets, it's because Israel has been careful to protect its citizens. And let's not forget that Arab terrorists have exploded numerous bombs in Israel -- in buses, pizza parlors, even at a religious gathering at a hotel –- killing hundreds of civilians.

Besides, the inhabitants of Gaza voted for Hamas, a terrorist organization that wants to wipe Israel off the map.

Was Israel's response disproportionate? Apparently it wasn't enough. Hamas is still firing rockets!

So, why are certain letter-writers such Jew-haters?

1. As children, they learned that the Jews killed Jesus. Actually, Lenny Bruce, the social commentator, killed Jesus. "I was drunk at the time," he confessed. "I'm sorry and I won't do it again." Seriously, anti-Semitism is ingrained in people throughout the
world -- thanks to the “they-killed-Jesus” slur. (I myself happen to be anti-English – for the very good reason that they burned Joan of Arc at the stake.)

2. Jews tend to be guilty of financial crimes. An old study reached that conclusion. The same study found that Catholics tend to be guilty of crimes of violence and Protestants guilty of sex crimes. Personally, I prefer to be cheated by an occasional Jew to being mugged by a Catholic or sexually attacked by a Protestant. Anyway, Jews are disproportionately involved in finance because many countries in the past refused to let them enter other occupations, like farming.

3. Most important, Jew-haters are life's losers. They are successful neither in love nor in their careers nor in their friendships. They're lonely and bitter. And they have (they believe) so much talent! So, who's responsible? Those %!#*&&! Jews! They're the ones who monopolize success! They win all those Nobel Prizes! Jon Stewart, Kevin Youkilis, Philip Roth, Scarlett Johannson, everywhere you look, you find successful Jews! “That's why I'm such a pathetic loser! The Jews have monopolized success! Those damn Jews are keeping me miserable and unloved!” As Mark Twain nicely put it, anti-Semitism is the “swollen envy of pygmy minds.”

4. Of course, Jew-haters also tend to be dumb, shallow, full of rage, and ignorant -- which perhaps, just perhaps, helps account for their lowly stations in life.

Re Wagner

2009-03-22T05:02:00.000-07:00

From What Did The Think of the Jews? by Allan Gould

I was saddened by the ugly anti-Jewish references in T.S. Eliot and Hemingway, ...but I was willing to forgive, if not forget; after all, ... if I refused to read the writings of everyone who had negative feelings toward Jews (or blacks, or gays, Catholics, and others), I would have a library so thin, I'd have to turn its few remaining books sideways to fill out the shelves. The do-gooder in me...longed to believe that one HAD to be a good person in order to create great Art, but I soon knew better; sexists have written great books; racists have painted great pictures; anti-Semites have built wonderful buildings, even impressive civilizations. C'est la vie.

Faulkner

2009-03-22T04:52:00.000-07:00

He was working on a screenplay for the film Background to Danger, with a young writer named Daniel Fuchs.
They didn't hit it off. Fuchs later said he was intimidated by the great novelist.

"You don't cozy to me because you think I'm anti-Semitic," said Faulkner to Fuchs one day.
"Yes," said Fuchs. "How about that?"
"Well, it's troo-oo," Faulkner said. "I dont like Jews--but I don't like Gentiles neither."

sarah (yuck!) palin

2009-03-21T13:50:00.000-07:00

She's in the news again, criticizing Obama for a joke he made about the Special Olympics--

She reminds me of Joe McCarthy--

Utterly without conscience--brazen--arrogant--feeling she can get away with anything-- with blatant lies--with irresponsible statements ("He palled around with terrorists") -- she must have grown up in a family where she dominated everyone--

Someone with authority should nail her-- the way the Senate's condemnation of Sen McCarthy brought him down--

to woodstock times: draft

2009-03-18T22:49:00.000-07:00

draft

Regarding the recent spate of anti-israel letters in the paper: it's absurd to claim that all anti-Israel people are really Jew-haters.
Only 99% are.

I mean, if you think that Israel has a right to exist, you can understand why its government feels obliged to attack a place that has sent THOUSANDS of rockets into its civilian area. If there have been few deaths in Israel as a result of those rockets, it's because Israel has been careful to protect its citizens. And let's not forget that (a) Arab terrorists have exploded numerous bombs in Israel--in buses, pizza parlors, and (b) the inhabitants of Gaza voted for Hamas, a terrorist organization that wants to wipe Israel off the map. Was Israel's response disproportioate? It wasn't enough! Hamas is still firing rockets!

So, why are people like (names) such Jew haters?

1. As children, they learned that the Jews killed Jesus. Actually, Lennie Bruce, the social commentator, killed Jesus. "I was drunk at the time," he confessed. "I'm sorry and I won't do it again." Seriously, anti-Semitism is ingrained in people throughout the world--thanks to the they-killed-Jesus myth.

2. Jews tend to be guilty of financial crimes. An old study reached that conclusion. The same study found that Catholics tend to be guilty of crimes of violence and Protestants guilty of sex crimes. Personally, I prefer to be cheated by an occasional Jew to being mugged by a Catholic or sexually attacked by a Protestant.

3. Jew-haters like (names) are life's losers. They are successful neither in love nor in their careers nor in their friendships. They're lonely and bitter. And they have (they believe) so much talent! So, who's responsible? Those damn Jews! They're the ones who monopolize success! They win all those Nobel Prizes! Jon Stewart, (names), everywhere you look you find successful Jews! That's why I'm NOT successful! The Jews are keeping me lonely and miserable and unloved!

4. Of course, Jew-haters also tend to be dumb, shallow, full of rage, and ignorant -- which perhaps, just perhaps, helps account for their lowly station in life.

Warren Boroson
Woodstock
845-679-2348

James Bednar is a liar

2009-03-16T06:50:00.000-07:00

James Bednar of Northern NJ and of the NJ Real Estate Report

is an unmitigated liar.

He has written that I quietly sold my house in Glen Rock while urging readers of my financial column in a local newspaper to buy houses.

I OFTEN wrote about selling my house; I was featured in a Kiplinger's article about people selling houses--with a huge photo of me.

I NEVER urged anyone to buy a house, although I quoted real-estate people saying that.

So, I want James Bednar, the liar, whenever he Googles himself, to see my message that he is a bald-faced LIAR.

More on: On Being Jewish

2009-03-14T03:05:00.001-07:00

My friend continued:

The second reason I'm upset when non-Jews talk about my Jewishness is that I've been subjected to anti-Semitism, especially when I was a kid.

* Coming home from college in NY, on a bus, I sat next to a drunk who subjected me to a long tirade against Jews. We were too clannish. I sat there and said nothing. People around us expressed their unhappiness. I should have changed seats. These days, I'm not so meek--and would have said something back.

*Working at the NY Stock Exchange, I regularly encountered a stockbroker--or worker -- who ranted against Jews. Angrily. No one said anything. Not even the Jews. I still have fantasies of punching him in the mouth.

"Going to or coming home from a Hebrew school in New Jersey, I tried to hide my Hebrew books--so the non-Jewish boys who saw me and saw that I was Jewish wouldn't taunt me and chase me.

*I applied for a job at an employment agency. The man interviewed before me was treated with infinite courtesy. I was given the bum's rush. The interviewer was filled with hostility--her eyes burned with hatred. My cousin Roberta later told me that that agency was notorious for its anti-Semitism.

*In Hawaii, I was having drinks with a nice couple I had just met. Where do you go to church? The man asked. I go to a synagogue, I said. Without a word, he abruptly put his drinks away and he and his wife left. The wife looked unhappy.

*As a kid, I went to a YMCA summer camp. Full of anti-Semitism. This was in the 1940s. When a new kid came to camp, and was friendly toward me, I knew the friendship would end when he learned I was Jewish. Overt anti-Semitism. I was always being challenged to fights. My older brother was forever defending me--and fighting the Christian kids during Friday night fights. (Lots of public anti-Semitism in the 1940s.)

*A neighbor, a child named Dorner, and I were arguing. She said No Jew is going to talk to me like that! And slapped me across the face. On the few occasions I saw her after that, she looked at me ashamed.

*My parents were buying a summer house. The builder kept making anti-Semitic remarks. My parents said nothing to him, but talked about it among themselves.

*A friend of my brother's was tryin to get into medical school--unsuccessfully. This was in the 1940s. He changed his name from Solomon to something very Christian--Jones, for instance. He complained that new medical-school applications now asked, if you changed your name, what was it before? He never became a doctor.

I could go on. But my point is: When other people bring up my Jewishness, I expect the worst.

To be continued.

A friend writes: On Being Jewish

2009-03-14T02:52:00.000-07:00

The friend writes:

"A barber, after cutting my hair, said, 'Happy holidays.' Jewish holidays were approaching. "Christmas isn't for quite a while yet," I said, genuinely puzzled. "No," he said, "I meant the Jewish holidays."

"I was upset. When non-Jews mention that I'm Jewish, I'm uncomfortable. Although my wife sees nothing wrong with the barber, an Italian, identifying me as Jewish.

"Why am I upset?

"1. The barber was saying, 'I can identify Jews. All Jews are alike.' Maybe I should have responded, I guess my big nose gave me away. Or was it my odeur Judaica? (In the Middle Ages, Jews were said to smell differently. Thos. Jefferson actually wrote that blacks smelled differently.) Or I might have responded: 'Actually, I'm a wop. A guinea. But I'm unusually smart for being a greaseball.' (I suspect he knew I was Jewish because I talk literarily, being an editor.)

Thinking about it, I can recall two other occurrences where people started talking about my Jewishness:

Recently, someone at a club I belong to said to me, I suppose you know German because you know Yiddish. I responded, angrily, I studied German in college. (True.) He noticed my anger--and has since avoided me. (I must have pronounced a few German words in his vicinity.)

In college, I wrote a paper on Chaucer's anti-Semitism. A fellow student, Michael Goldman, sidled up to me and said, I read our paper and I suppose you're Jewish. I froze. And I walked away. (I've been puzzled, over the years, why I had done that.)

to be continued

West Side Story

2009-03-11T02:32:00.000-07:00

I saw the preview of the revival--pretty good--the Anita was the star--

good singer, good dancer, good actress--and she got the most applause!

tony and maria were just ok--

the dancing was the best thing about the show--

in the original, was Tony told that Maria had been shot to death? I don'r remember that--

The Operatic Life

2009-03-08T15:44:00.000-07:00

The strange thing about a singer's destiny is that you have to renounce everything for its sake, and then it's all over in a flash.
The imprint we leave behind is like the snow you see falling this afternoon; tomorrow it will be gone, and there will be nothing. Yes, a few people will remember, but only for a very short time.

Lisa della Casa

2009-03-08T10:15:00.000-07:00

Slumdog Millionaire

An inadvertent, perhaps, explanation of the capitalist system.

In India, despite the poverty, the disparity between the rich and the poor, the corruption, the violence, the do-nothing police, Indians accept their otherwise intolerable conditions because…

there’s a teen-tiny chance of someone’s becoming a millionaire.

Popular Song During the Great Depression

2009-03-06T15:19:00.000-08:00

"Don't Tell My Mother I'm a Banker--She Thinks I Play the Piano in a Whore House"

Astonishing Comment

2009-03-05T03:01:00.000-08:00

Lotte Lehmann, the opera singer, once said that she had seen a performance of Turandot--

and the singer who sang Turandot was better than she herself was!

(I'll have to doublecheck this--I do have a biography of LL out from my library.)

Nice Compliment

2009-02-28T10:05:00.000-08:00

Mary Zimmerman, director, on Natalie Dessay, the opera singer:

"My bottom line about Natalie is she's either proof that God exists or compensation that he doesn't."

Notes for a Talk about Luisa Tetrazinni

2009-02-25T00:41:00.000-08:00

Some older singers were boring people and led boring lives—like Renata Tebaldi—but the Florentine Nightingale, Luisa Tetrazinni, certainly wasn’t.
When’s the last time you heard anyone called “dissolute”? in fact, unless you’re 18 years old or accompanied by a parent, you had better leave this classroom right now.
LT lwas childlike and ditzy. How did she spend her free time? Someone said she ate spaghetti, went to the movies, and played dominoes.
And she was so trusting! She liked a taxi-cab driver he had just met, and promptly made this fellow her business manager. As for her husbands, you wouldn’t believe the blackguards and lowlifes she married.
At 55 she married someone of 32—who spent a good deal of the remainder of his life suing her and trying to make off with her money.
While the marriage lasted, it wasn‘t happy. Her biographer Charles Neilson Gattey writes that her husband, Vernati, “being a prudish young man…could not cope with his wife’s strong sex drive.”

Talking of marriage, she claims that Caruso proposed to her—several times--despite her being short and grotesquely fat. And she herself proposed to John McCormack. His response: Luisa, on stage I can’t even embrace you because you’re so fat! (Not a gracious way to turn down a marriage proposal.)

In San Fran, they still talk about the free open air concert she gave in 1910—250,000 people are supposd to have heard her—without microphones.

You’ve heard of Lily Pons? What did Luisa think of her? Piccola, piccola voce—Small, small voice--

Luisa was a coloratura—sang with every ornament you can imagine—trills, roulades, scales—and with amazing accuracy—as a test she one sang 100 high Cs in succession, and the waveforms shown on a machine were identical.
A newspaper wrote: “Mme Tetrazinni can do anything with her voice except sing out of tune.”

She once told another opera singer, Frieda Hempel, that when she was young she sang contralto. Hempel scoffed. So Luisa let out some powerful, gorgeous contralto tones. Oh, Luisia, what a voice! Said Hempel. Is there anything you cannot do? Luisa looked down at herself and said, "Well, Friedalina, some peoples hava de figure, but I gotta the voice.”

Toscanini declined to have her sing at La Scala, saying she was pyrotechnical—years later he asked her to sing for him -- she said but I sing nothing but pyrotechnics!—but maybe someday--

She was incredibly popular in her day—
After singing caro nome in sf, a newspaperman wrote, “The orchestra men jumped up and cheered. Men stood on the seats of their chairs and threw their hats in the air—women tore flowers from their dresses and threw them on the stage.”
So she sang caro nome again!
Sometimes, after a performance, men with flaming torches would unhitch the horses of her carriage and pull it back to her hotel.

EM Forster wrote about her in his novel Where Angels Fear to Tread—he heard her sing in Lucia, and was enchanted -- when she became famous he thought of writing to her—but decided against it – he had written in his novel that despite her voice she was ugly and stout--

She loved pets—"I have plenty animal. I have 15 dogs, five cats, and two peacocks, and I had a tiger. I called him Poosy.” Poosy was in fact a young leopard.

She was a fun-loving generous person--and she had a lot of friends—especially Caruso and Adelina Patti--apart from Nellie Melba, who called her "that dwarf"—she once walked past Melba’s suite in the Savoy Hotel and heard her singing—so she asked the superintendent, “Have you many cats in your lovely hotel?”

In 1926, at a dinner party, Melba’s pianist inspected the menu and said, "On no account is Dame Nellie to see this. If she does, she will tear you to pieces.” On the menu it said peach melba 3 shillings, chicken tetrazinni 4 shillings.

OK, children leave the room.
Someone wrote about her: “She is extremely dissolute in her private life and much affected by flattery and champagne.”
Singing in South America, she was late for a performance—she had been in bed with her husband and forgot the time—she needed sex, an acquaintance said, the way other people need to smoke—apparently that was one way she warmed up before going on stage.

Her manager once said, “She says, Ah no singa tonight,’ and when I asked her why, she said, Ah wanta man!”
He wrote: “Sometimes by adding a bit of pecuniary reward to diplomatic persuasion the matter was concluded to everyone’s satisfaction.”

When Luisa’s manager’s wife sued her for adultery, the wife’s lawyer “produced evidence of suggestive behavior in the hotel rooms of half Europe and in the secluded villas of rome. A whole bizarre world flashed past in the depositions of secretaries porters, gardeners and cooks…”

The NY impresario Sol Hurok described her “as a charming little woman with a weakness for romantic attachments with men much younger than herself on whom she squandered her money.” He could scarcely keep up with her rapid changes of heart. “A frantic call from Detroit or some other city would warn me that there was going to be serious trouble over the pianist unless I came at once. By the time I arrived, the trouble was no longer the pianist but the cellist.”

In her old age still sang well. After one concert, a friend said, Madame, that was wonderful. It was not wonderful, she said, crossing herself. It was miracle.

She was reduced to singing in a large Boston movie house, among variety acts including acrobats. So fat by then, she couldn’t walk on stage gracefully, so she sat on a small platform while the curtains parted. In New York she sang at the Paramount 4 times a day in vaudeville.

In her old age, she said something memorable, I am old, I am fat, but I will always be …la Tetrazinni!

In the 1932 film, One Night of Love, there’s an old fat opera singer, and you can guess who that’s based on.

She had a fancy mausoleum for her built in Milan. But it fell into disrepair after she died and it was torn down, and her body buried elsewhere.

Her biographer wrote that "it is sad that T’s remains should be treated in this way…fortunately there is a far more lasting memorial to her in the recordings of her voice—a voice not to be mistaken for any other, that sang straight from the heart to the hearts of her listeners.”

Notes on a Talk On Beniamino Gigli

2009-02-23T18:02:00.001-08:00

Gigli had a specially beautiful tenor voice, but not much in the way of brains or character.

Nigel Douglas, a singer-critic, said: “It is the archetypal glorious Italian sound; there is a sweetness to it, a glowing, soft-grained caressing quality which quite simply seduces the ear, and which never hardens or coarsens when the voice comes under dramatic pressure…. There is a liquid quality which I always think of as the essence of Gigli’s singing.”

Like most tenors he was short and plump—-and embarrassed about it. Puccini turned him down for the tenor’s role in the premiere of La Rondine, because he was unhandsome, and critics sometimes roasted him—-“a well-fed Andrea Chenier,” one called him. But there’s no denying that sweet beguiling voice.

As fine a singer as he was, one critic said he “lacked the essential fire and passion of the great Italian tenors”—-think about that when you listen to Alessandro Bonci, another great tenor.
Another critic wrote that in Tosca, Gigli had a way of making his listeners "all too conscious he was Mr Gigli, the celebrated Italian tenor and not Mario Cavaradossi."
Another referred to his “sobbing tricks.” Still another said that “at the end of his long and wonderful career he was capable of introducing a spontaneous gush of vulgarity into any otherwise flawless piece of vocalization.”

He wrote a book—-or at least his name is on it (The Memoirs of…). But it is a smooth job from beginning to end, and obviously was ghost-written—-Gigli spoke poor English.
The beginning is nice: “I was born with a voice and very little else: no money, no influence, no other talents. Had it not been for the peculiar formation of my vocal cords, I should probably at this moment be planing tables or sewing trousers, or mending shoes as my father did, in the little town of Recanati, where I was born on March 20th, 1890. But God gave me a voice, and that changed everything. I was good at singing, and nothing else.”

He was no paragon of righteousness.
Every day for 2 years Signorra Boccuci gave him singing lessons—-free-—and then he signed up with another teacher, agreeing to PAY that teacher. The former unpaid teacher sued--the judge ordered Gigli to pay her a large sum of money. But Gigli notes that she didn’t press for payment—-“she only wanted to make a gesture, and I heard no more of the matter.”
Typically an opera house had a rule against encores but Gigli always arrogantly broke it (even at the Met) with the same weak excuse-—“it seemed the only way of calming down the audience.”

Maria Jeritza, a gorgeous blonde soprano, was temperamental, the terror of tenors, and Gigli despised her. During the premiere of Fedora, she pushed him so hard he had to brace himself against a wing support; in the next performance, she wiggled so much that he staggered—and the audience laughed. Once, when his top hat fell to the floor, she kicked it across the stage.
In a later performance he -–perhaps accidentally--almost pushed Jeritza into the orchestra pit. She wound up with abrasions on both legs. Afterwards she said, pointing to him,
“He did it! He wanted to kill me! Murderer!”

She vowed never to sing with Gigli again. bBut 2 weeks later she was to sing with him in Tosca. They did sing together—but she was mad at his taking a curtain call. And when she herself finally did, she said, tearfully—a memorable line--"Gigli not nice to me!"
They never sang together again.

In 1932, during rhe Depression, the Met asked everyone to take a 10% salary cut--
Everyone agreed--except Gigli.
Some 32 artists signed a letter demanding his removal, including Serafin, Ponselle, de Luca, Pinza, Melchior, Bori, Rethberg. His conduct, he admits in his book, was “inexcusable… my critics were to some extent justified.” ut “I found it intolerable …that my contribution should be demanded as a right, decided for me in advance.”
Of course, when people say it’s not the money it’s the principle of the thing... it’s the money.

He gave concerts for charities, but had an ostentacious estate built in his home town—-on 7,000 acres--with 60 rooms, 23 bathrooms, a swimming pool, roman bath, aqueduct, a refrigerator in the kitchen that could hold enough food for 20 people for a year. His book contains photos, even one of his bedroom!

Gigli was very pro-Italy, even during WW2, and rebuked Toscanini for leaving Italy: “his political sympathies were alien to me, and I could never understand the way in which he allowed them to rule his life. To me Italy was Italy, no matter what the regime.”

Gigli was a compulsive name-dropper:
In his book there are repeated boastful mentions of meeting Mussolini, Goering, Hitler. Hitler, he notes, gave him an autographed photograph; again: “afterwards Hitler shook my hand and told me he liked Italian music very much.” Again: “Hitler came to my benefit concert…and afterward gave me a signed photograph of himself.” Again: In munich, in a performance of Aida, “Hitler applauded tirelessly.”

The book came out in 1957, as I recall.

After the war, threatening crowds besieged Gigli’s house in Rome and for months he didn’t dare leave it.

He had a wonderful voice but a limited intellect. He once said the US would have a civil war because of the powerful unions, which he said, were in the hands of Jews. Richard Crooks, another tenor at the Met, said Gigli should have learned to use his mouth only for singing. (Crooks was not only a thoroughly decent guy and a fine singer, but he was born in Trenton and grew up in NJ!)

Gigli had husbanded his voice, and sang well into his 60s.
“It was due to the care with which I always chose my repertory (for example, I invariably refused Otello) that I was able to single in public for 41 years.”

He gave a farewell tour in the US, he joked, so he could once again hear himself introduced as Mr. Giggly.

I sometimes feel that God tries to be fair. If He gives someone a wonderful singing voice, He also gives that person balancing handicaps. In the case of certain singers, like Jarmila Novotna, God clearly erred for He gave her beauty as well as a lovely voice and a winning personality. But in the case of Gigli, God may have erred on the side of giving him offsetting handicaps.

Dexter, the Nice Serial Murderer

2009-02-22T06:55:00.001-08:00

He’s a one-man lynch mob. He "takes the law into his own hands" when the law has clearly proved inadequate. Not only does he murder murderers; he frames the brutish ex-husband of his girlfriend by injecting him with heroin and leaving him, while unconscious, for the cops to find. He will happily murder any mass murderer, even his brother.
“I will be judge and I will be jury,” to quote Lewis Carroll.
Where will it end? Will he dispose of a rival in his office, or a cop for giving him a ticket? Am I in danger for writing this about him?
We sympathize with Dexter. When he loses his nerve and doesn’t murder a blind murderer, we root for him to get his nerve back. And I was, indeed, hoping that he would get his girlfriend’s obnoxious ex-husband out of the picture.
There have been predecessors. Hannibal the Cannibal, for instance—that somewhat admirable serial murderer who likes to eat his victims. And there was a Michael Douglas film where he headed a committee to wreak justice on malefactors who had gone free. (The message was that the committee didn’t work.)
I doubt that many viewers will be persuaded to “take the law into heir own hands” thanks to Dexter. Some kids do try to fly, emulating Superman, but hell, it’s clear that Dexter is sick.
What’s annoying is that the program claims that Dexter, like his brother the Ice Truck Killer, is instinctually prone to murder—and he needs an outlet. His decent, sympathetic cop-father even guides him into a career of killing killers. So he graduates from killing animals to killing people—bad people. What kind of person is born with a need to kill?
Not the kind, gentle, funny, warm fellow that Dexter tends to be when he’s not busy killing people.
The program is well done—clever writing, good acting (apart from a few cast members who chew the scenery). And some of its attraction is from the unusual horror – all that blood, all those dead bodies. (I turn away when Dexter plunges a knife into someone’s heart.)
I’m not arguing that Dexter should be censored. But I think that if impressionable young people watch the program, they should be urged to see “The Ox-Bow Incident”—a film against lynching.

Trovatore

2009-02-17T02:03:00.000-08:00

Nonsensical plot--Gothic garbage--

A brother doesn't kill his brother, even tho he doesn't know he's his brother, because a voice from heaven says don't do it--

But later on the other brother DOES kill the first brother--

Still, the opera is full of gorgeous music--and it was fun to finally know what those famous arias were about--

And Dmitri Hvorosovsky was wonderful as the Count--

And Sondra Radvanovsky was outstanding as Leonora--a big fresh voice capable of lots of ornamentation--she stole the show!

(apart from her silly lying on the ground singing in Act I)

This was a new production and it was pretty good--simple but impressive sets--

(Rememer, in the old days. when opera singers changed their names to something simple? Now we have to deal with Hvorosovsky and Radvanovsky!)

Gripe

2009-02-16T07:05:00.000-08:00

It's my theory that Republicans are more immoral than Democrats. Republicans by and large side with the rich and powerful; Democrats sympathize with the down and out. That's because Republicans in general have little in the way of conscience.

Emails come to me from newsmax@sparklist.com.

I thought it was an objective source. Turns out to be disgusting Republican propaganda. Like Fox News. Unfair and unbalanced.

I have not figured out how to keep these unwanted emails from coming my way, alas.

Annoyances2

2009-02-14T13:31:00.000-08:00

In the Hobbyists, a social group I belong to, there's a knowledgeable but arrogant guy--always trying to show how smart and learned he is--a real pill--

In a lecture I just gave about great opera singers of the past, he was continually trying to show off his own knowledge--"That's was from Faust"--"The year was 1903"--"Pinza seduced Rethberg"--

Then, as the class was over and he was leaving, he called over his shoulder, "You should find out about Stracciari!"

I guess he had planned to say that beforehand--I didn't know what to respond--although I've heard of Stracciari--

His message to the other people: I know more than he does.

If he does that to the next speaker, I'll reprimand him--

Annoyances 1

2009-02-14T13:28:00.000-08:00

A high school friend-- not well educated -- sends me one of those "I treasure you and if you treasure me send this back" messages--I dutifully comply--then she sends me a note demanding to know why I cut off the bottom--I don't know what she means--I write back, my machine has been misbehaving--she responds, you're the operator behind the machine!!! Yes, three exclamation points-- what the hell is bothering her? i thought of writing a nasty comment back--but will just never write to her or respond to her messages again--

Things People Have Said During My Music Course (1)

2009-02-12T17:33:00.001-08:00

He has a nice voice! (listening to Fritz Wunderlich)
XXX
Have you ever heard of Rosa Raisa?
No.
You should ashamed of yourself.
XXX
Why didn't you play (a certain aria)? It's one of my favorites!
XXX
I once saw Lawrence Tibbett at the Met.
XXX

Neale Godfrey

2009-02-12T17:31:00.000-08:00

She said that when she worked for David Rockefeller at Chase Bank

he told her

hearses don't have luggage racks.

The Liar

2009-02-08T06:51:00.000-08:00

The liar who claimed that I quietly sold my house while urging readers of my newspaper column to buy is named

James Bednar. He is responsible for something called the NJ Real Estate Report.

He lied in saying that I quietly sold my house. I wrote about it many times in my column--and Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine featured me in an article about people who sold their houses.

And I have NEVER urged people to buy houses.

Yet these lies constantly appear on Google.

Anyway, I should have sued James Bednar, the liar. But now I want everyone to know: James Bednar of the NJ Real Estate Report is an unmitigated liar.

I HATE AOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-02-02T09:59:00.000-08:00

So AOL asks me to upgrade my email.

I comply.

Now I cannot send out group messages!

Also: unless I check a box to delete spam, exactly in the box, I am exposed to the spam.

I'm switching to Gmail.

Screw AOL !!!!!!!!

"You Are Considerably Deformed in Person...?"

2009-01-25T06:59:00.001-08:00

From “Eyewitness to History” edited by John Carey 1987
- - - - -
Factory Conditions, c. 1815

Evidence of a Female Millhand to the Partliamentary Commissioners

Elizabeth Bentley

What age are you?
Twenty-three.

Where do you live?
At Leeds.

What time did you begin work at the factory?
When I was six years old.

At whose factory did you work?
Mr Burk’s.

What kind of mill is it?
Flax mill.

What was your business in that mill?
I was a little doffer.

What were your hours of labour in that mill??
From 5 in the morning till 9 at night, when they were thronged.

For how long a time together have you worked that excessive length of time?
For about a year.
What were the usual hours of labour when you were not so thronged?
From six in the morning till 7 at night.

What time was allowed for meals?
Forty minutes at noon.

Had you any time to get your breakfast or drinking?
No, we had to get it as we could.

Do you consider doffing a laborious employment?
Yes.

Explain what you had to do?
When the frames are full, they have to stop the frames, and take the flyers off, and take the full bobbins off, and carry them to the roller, and then put empty ones on, and set the frames going again.

Does that keep you constantly on your feet?
Yes, there are so many frames and they run so quick.

Your labour is very excessive?
Yes, you have not time for anything.

Suppose you flagged a little, or were late, what would they do?
Strap us.

Are they in the habit of strapping those who are last in doffing?
Yes.

Constantly?
Yes.

Girls as well as boys?
Yes.

Have you ever been strapped?
Yes.

Severely?
Yes.

Is the strap used so as to hurt you excessively?
Yes it is… I have seen the overlooker go to the top end of the room, where the little girls hug the can to the backminders; he has taken a strap, and a whistle in his mouth, and sometimes he has got a chain and chained them, and strapped them all down the room.

What was his reason for that?
He was very angry.

Did you live far from the mill?
Yes, two miles.

Had you a clock?
No, we had not.

Were you generally there on time?
Yes, my mother has been up at 4 o’clock in the morning, and at 2 o’clock in the morning; the colliers used to go to their work at 3 or 4 o’clock, and when she heard them stirring she has got up out of her warm bed, and gone out, and asked them the time; and I have sometimes been at the Hunslet Car at 2 o’clock in the morning, when it was streaming down with rain, and we have had to stay till the mill was opened.

You are considerably deformed in person as a consequence of this labour?
Yes I am.

And what time did it come on?
I was about 13 years old when it began coming, and it has got worse since; it is five years since my mother died, and my mother was never able to get me a good pair of stays to hold me up, and when my mother died I had to do it for myself, and got me a pair.

Were you perfectly straight and healthy before you worked at a mill?
Yes, I was as straight a little girl as ever went up and down town.

Were you straight till you were 13?
Yes, I was.

Did your deformity come upon you with much pain and weariness?
Yes, I cannot express the pain all the time it was coming.

Do you know of anybody that has been similarly injured in their health?
Yes, in their health, but not many deformed as I am.

It is very common to have weak ankles and crooked knees?
Yes, very common indeed.

This is brought on by stopping the spindle?
Yes.

Where are you now?
In the poorhouse.

State what you think as to the circumstances in which you have been placed
during all this time of labour, and what you have considered about it as to the hardship and cruelty of it.

The witness was too much affected to answer the question.

Possible Solution

2009-01-24T04:36:00.000-08:00

Someone has regularly been ripping off Wal-Mart.

This person has emptied out the big luggage, put an expensive item inside (like an electric cooker), buys the luggage (trusting that no clerk will look inside), then returns it--keeping the expensive item. Excuse for returning the luggage: No smaller pieces inside, as was advertised on the label outside.

As I noted, ALL of the similar large pieces of luggage had no smaller pieces inside.

Mystery part 2

2009-01-23T15:16:00.000-08:00

Someone pointed out: If, when I bought that suitcase, the cashier had opened the case--I might have been charged with trying to steal a cooker!

When I returned the luggage today, the young woman asked: was there something wrong with the luggage?
I said: You won't believe what was in there. A General Electric cooker! She was startled.

I went to look for a similar piece of luggage, with the other pieces inside. All 3-4 similar pieces were empty. So I got a credit and bought a piece of luggage at Target. And discovered that Target's prices generally are almost as low as Wal-Mart's!

Tip-Top Restaurant

2009-01-23T08:41:00.000-08:00

Saddle River Inn is expensive, but the food is superb. Went there on my birthday. Now my favorite Bergen County restaurant.

Can Anyone Figure This Out?

2009-01-22T21:57:00.000-08:00

I went to Wal-Mart today & bought some luggage. The kind that has a variety of small pieces inside a great big piece.

At home, I opened the luggage.

Inside: a General Electric appliance--some sort of a cooker.

My question: Why did someone do this?

As an adolescent joke?

Poem from Tom B

2009-01-22T06:17:00.001-08:00

Buffetted
by funny markets
and nasty bosses,
you have upheld your pen and balance,
with verb, verve and vitality at 73,
the capacity of hope, and
the audacity of change
back from a dollar,
for
the Boroson also rises
to Hackensack
from Barack

A Letter from Marilyn Horne

2009-01-20T17:17:00.000-08:00

I had written to her asking two questions:

Although she wrote in her autobiography that she admired two singers, she also wrote that their techniques were defective. What did she mean?

Also, could she come to Bergen Community College & appear before a class on famous singers?

Answer No. 1: "They were both, Supervia and Ferrier, extraordinary artists. That is what made them so special. Great powers of expression, but as I said, they had faulty technique, which means that they basically never solved their vocal problems (technically). It really didn't matter because they were able to compensate, each in a special way."

Answer No. 2: Sorry, but too busy.

And she appended a handwritten PS: "Greetings to all in the class!"

A most gracious lady.

Birthday Party

2009-01-19T01:13:00.000-08:00

I had a cake made for my birthday, and told the very young man at the bakery that I wanted written on it:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY METHUSELAH

He seemed puzzled. Then he asked: Is Methuselah a boy's name or a girl's name?

I guess he wanted to know whether the writing should be in pink or blue.

Successful party. Because of snow & other reasons, a number of guests canceled--7 in all.

But we had he LeMays (2), the Woodses (4), Sally, Kathy, Katherine, the hosts (2), Miriam, Bette, Charlie, Duffy, Marylou, Annie and Jim--18 in all. That was just the right number! 25 would have been too many.

What do you need to have a successful party? Talkative, outgoing people. Good food and drink and lots of it.

Suzanne wrote me a dandy poem:

Once upon a market dreary
While my stocks sat weak and weary
Came a rapping, rapping at my chamber door

Ah distinctly I remember
All my profits turned to embers
My 401K now lost and gone for sure

Came a voice said, “nevermore.”

Wait, what is this voice that’s calling
Could it be my dear friend Warren?
Tapping, tapping at my chamber door?

Deep into that darkness peering
Long I stood there, wondering, fearing
Til he emerged with CDs galore

Verdi, Mozart and Puccini
To me it all sounds like linguini
But to his students his popularity has soared

No more reading the market’s ills
Now he talks of Tosca and Seville
And all the singers he adores.

An opera teacher evermore!

Driving Tip

2009-01-13T03:05:00.000-08:00

Driving yesterday, I was happily listening to Marilyn Horne sing operatic arias on a CD. Powerful voice.

As I drove through a green light into an intersection, I saw an ambulance ready to enter the intersection--with its lights flashing and its siren on. I dimly heard the siren. I'm glad the ambulance driver had cautiously stopped! She and I exchanged glances--mine was, I'm sure, a look of fear.

Listening to a cellphone while driving is dangerous. So, I've just learned, is listening to loud (even if beautiful) music.

Unpleasant People

2009-01-11T01:59:00.000-08:00

I'm still angry that Jim Flachsenaar, the new editor of the Daily Record, killed my financial column a little over a year ago--because he was jealous of my prominent role at the paper. One of those people always putting his own interest ahead of anything else.

He was the disciple of Glen Ritt, who had been his boss at another newspaper.

Other people I still harbor grudges against: Jennifer Borg at the Bergen Record, a really mean person. Her father, Malcolm, a not very smart person.

Jim Hendricks, former editor at Medical Economics. Paul, a co-worker, once warned me: Don't make him any crazier than he is. Always threatened by talented people. And Jack Ryan, a dim-witted puppet of Hendricks'.

Oh, and Joe Nocera, a columnist at the NYTimes. He and I once appeared on a panel together. He didn't come off well. But Editor & Publisher ran a story about the meeting --and Nocera dominated it! I figure that he himself wrote the story for Editor & Publisher. People always intent on looking out for No. 1 sometimes are successful.