Five things

[chickenfeet]

majea associated five things with me. If you want to play you know what to do.

opera

It’s no secret that I enjoy opera and have done for a very long time, as in since I was a teenager. For the longest time I had a huge blind spot about some of the most popular parts of the repertoire, principally the Italian 19th and early 20th stuff like Verdi and Puccini. I have come to like that stuff quite a lot recently so my opportunities to enjoy have increased greatly. I still think my preferences lean more to early and late though. There should be much more Handel opera performed.

A lot of people claim to really not like opera at all. I think there a lot of reasons for that. The first and most obvious is that a lot of people don’t like “classical” music. I can understand that. It’s quite hard work to learn (in what other genre do you have to come to terms with technical conventions that have evolved over many centuries and where works of all those times are still performed?), you can’t really dance to it and drugs don’t improve it. Then there’s the problem that many people have tried to listen to opera rather than watch it which is a bit like listening to football on the radio never having seen a game. It doesn’t work. So a lot of people get put off without ever having seen an opera which I think is a shame. It’s also quite expensive and I can see why people would be reluctant to spend $150 on something they might not enjoy. Fortunately the current MetHD broadcasts are very good and only cost $20 so that’s not really a good excuse anymore.

Bottom line, I like opera and I suspect more people would if they gave it a go. That said I don’t think it’s for everyone but then what is?

feline caretaking

Currently of course we just have three adult cats so the care and feeding thing is pretty easy. Looking after kittens was far more work and was almost a full time job for the lemur who is undoubtedly a Hero of the Feline Revolution. The hardest thing about having cats is going away. Apart from the hassle of organizing care I miss them horribly and worry about them constantly.

debate

Yes, I’m an argumentative bastard but I like to think I’m a logical and reasonable one. I really dislike people who argue ad hominem and I’m deeply suspicious of discourse which privileges a priori positions.

I did do the formal debating thing for a while at school and university. The high point was probably debating against Michael Ramsay shortly after he retired as archbishop of Canterbury. I also, of course, got involved in debates at conventions when I was politically active, both on the conference floor and more relevantly in caucus (where all the real debate happens). People I’ve crossed swords with include Trevor Philips, Charles Clarke and Sue Slipman..

rugby

I first played competitive rugby in 1968. I had a long lay off for all kinds of reasons between about 1980 and 1996 when I started playing again. I stopped playing competitively in, I think, 1993 and then altogether two years ago. Both decisions were injury related. I’m still involved as a coach and referee.

Rugby is a fun game to watch but better to play. As Surtees said of ‘unting, “All the excitement of war but not five and twenty percent of the danger”. It’s a truly physical activity requiring speed, strength, skill and, frankly, courage. I like that and I like the kind of people the game tends to produce. Sure there are some pretty awful rugby types (mostly South African) but most of the people I’ve played with I have liked in one way or another. I’ve also found the parents of the kids I coach to be quite the opposite of the horror stories I hear about soccer and hockey parents.

science stuff.

As opposed to that hand wavy arts stuff? I’m a mathematician by academic background. I’m glad of that because mathematical thinking at quite a high level is necessary to understand much of modern physics. It’s more than just a language or a set of techniques it’s a fundamentally different way of perceiving/constructing reality and that helps with, for example, physics where what happens on a large or small scale simply doesn’t make ‘sense’ in that what is going on is beyond our powers to perceive directly. I also like having an easy familiarity with quantitative arguments. It means I can call bullshit on a large range of crap that floats past my tender nostrils at work and elsewhere.

Comments

[rbowspryte.livejournal.com]

I like opera and lack a serious companion to indulge with (other than a close partner/friend of mine futabachan who is not always available.

Yes, I’m an argumentative bastard but I like to think I’m a logical and reasonable one. I really dislike people who argue ad hominem and I’m deeply suspicious of discourse which privileges a priori positions.

I can understand completely. I find I avoid a priori statements as well. I have noticed however that when I am suspicious and insecure I occassionaly fall back into the realm of their common use.

It's something I've become aware of recently. The fact is if I feel the world at large rejects me or a group of people I blanketly do the same based on a lack of experiencial data.

[yiskah.livejournal.com]

It’s quite hard work to learn (in what other genre do you have to come to terms with technical conventions that have evolved over many centuries and where works of all those times are still performed?)

I've never understood this. I've loved (some) classical music from when I was very small, way before I knew anything about music theory or the time of composition or anything other than the fact that it sounded nice to me. The same reason I like a hell of a lot of other music. Sure, I'm talking about Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky, the more accessible classical music, and it does take some understanding or perseverence to get to grips with, say, Shostakovich. But I feel like most people who say they don't like classical music are more intimidated by the idea that you have to know about it to like it. Which is untrue, in my view.

As for opera - I think a lot of people are put off by the first opera they encounter. My ex hated opera, and I still think that's because his mother was a big Wagner fan, and Mark thought opera = Wagner. Hell, I don't much like Wagner, but I know enough other opera to know that there's some very different stuff out there. It doesn't make sense to lump all opera in a single basket.

I totally agree with you on Handel operas, by the way. I saw Theodora at Glyndebourne a few years ago and it was one of the highlights of my opera-going experience.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

I'm a real case in point for what you say about opera. I'm not really very knowledgeable about music, and the classical music I do like is usually Mozart and earlier, so except for him, not much opera crossover. I'd listen to records and think,"Why?" And then I saw the Bergman movie of The Magic Flute--I fell in love. Then I began to be able to go to the Lyric Opera in Chicago. I was just thinking about the importance of seeing (as opposed to just listening) to opera when we went to Tristan und Isolde last week, with sets by David Hockney. (http://www.hockneypictures.com/images/3-works/5-stage%20design/installations/tristan/tristan_layout.jpg) The visual experience, not just the sets but the staging, acting, etc., (to say nothing of the subtitles) made it overwhelming. A huge moonrise during Isolde's final aria--perfect.

[shezan.livejournal.com]

Oh, what did you think of Trevor Phillips? I was at a conference with him last summer, and while he was quite clever and had a kind of overwhelming, heavy-duty charm, and on the surface of it made complete sense (not to mention that he was kind about my presentation), my instinct was pretty much, well, not creeped out, really, more slicked-out. Boy, was he slick.

[jen-c-w.livejournal.com]

ooh, go on then